Controllable and high-yielding synthesis of ZIF-8 hollow structures for electrochemical energy storage

Abstract

Well-designed architectures are of great significance for metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) to explore new applications, but the controllable and industrial-scale synthesis remains a great challenge so far. We herein develop a general and facile route for preparing ZIF-8 hollow structures, by adjusting the balance between old bond breakage of starting MOFs and new bond reassembly of targeted ZIF-8. With a simple carbonization treatment, hollow ZIF-8-derived nanoporous carbon can be fabricated, which inherit hollow structures of their original precursors. Due to the unique double-shelled hollow architecture which affords more active sites and fast charge transfer kinetics as well as structural stability, the double-shelled hollow ZIF-8-derived nanoporous carbon exhibits remarkable electrochemical energy storage performances. It is believed that the present synthesis strategy will give a significant insight into the controllable synthesis of hollow MOF structures and other more complicated MOF architectures, which would further exploit new application areas of MOF materials.