Fabrication of highly porous N-doped mesoporous carbon using waste polyethylene terephthalate bottle-based MOF-5 for high performance supercapacitor

•Smart use of waste PET bottles to produce high surface area nitrogen doped mesoporous carbon (N-MC).•The fabricated N-MC demonstrate an exceptional specific surface area of ~2243 m2 g-1.•High specific capacitance of ~230 f g-1 by CV at 5 mV s-1 and ~295 f g-1 at by GCD at 0.5 a g-1.•The capacitance retention test showed ~98% stability after running 400 segments. Herein, high surface area nitrogen doped mesoporous carbon (N-MC) has been fabricated through economically feasible approach using waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic through MOF-5 construction. Utmost rational approach of PET waste recycling is the chemical route/s, in which a depolymerization of PET takes place for converting it into its building block (1,4-benzendicarboxylic acid) which was used as an organic linker to construct MOF-5. The synthesized N-MC demonstrates high specific surface area of ~2243 m2 g-1 with mesopores (~14 nm). An excellent electrochemical as well as energy storage behavior was shown in super-capacitors as tested in three-electrode system with 6 M KOH. The electrochemical results revealed that the fabricated N-MC depicts an enhanced specific capacitance of ~230 F g-1 by cyclic voltammetry (CV) at 5 mV s-1 and ~295 F g-1by galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) at 0.5 A g-1. The GCD stability test showed ~98% retention after running 400 segments. The fabrication of N-MC using waste PET plastic makes it appealing for environmental remediation and an efficient low-cost electrode material for supercapacitor applications.