Electro-organic synthesis of 2-(4,5-diphenyl-1H-imidazol-2-yl)phenol in Aqueous medium for organic monomer based Supercapacitor electrode

•An Eco-friendly electro-organic synthetic method for 2-(4,5-diphenyl-1H-imidazol-2-yl)phenol (DIP) using two electrode system.•DIP was synthesized in aqueous medium with good economical yield and showed excellent capacitance behaviour.•DIP as a monomer itself exhibited pseudocapacitive behaviour.•DIP showed 93.7% specific capacitance retention in the supercapacitor measurement. An efficient cost-effective and eco-friendly electro-organic synthesis of 2-(4,5-diphenyl-1H-imidazol-2-yl)phenol (DIP) in aqueous medium and its application as an electrode material for supercapacitor are reported here. The as-synthesized derivative was characterized by various spectral and analytical techniques. The optical and physical properties were analyzed by PL studies and by XRD, SEM, BET, TG- DTA and DSC techniques. The electrochemical studies of the electroactive material, DIP were carried out using Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), Galvanostatic Charge – Discharge analysis (GCD) and Electrochemical Impedence Spectroscopy (EIS). DFT calculation of DIP was also performed to evaluate the bandgap energy theoretically. DIP as a monomer exhibited a good capacitive behavior with a specific capacitance of 325F/g at the scan rate of 5mV/s. The results revealed that DIP can be potentially used as a promising electrode material for high performance supercapacitor applications.