<p>With the rapid development of energy storage technology, there is an increasing demand for high-performance capacitive carbon materials. However, the traditional preparation methods often have defects such as high cost and complex processes. Using coal tar pitch (CTP) as raw material, the optimal conditions for preparing purified coal tar pitch (PCTP) by solvent centrifugation were identified. Subsequently, using PCTP as the carbon source and potassium hydroxide (KOH) as the activator, purified pitch-based capacitive carbon was prepared by the one-step carbonization-activation method. Its performance was much better than conventional pitch-based capacitive carbon (the specific surface area, micropore specific surface area, pore volume, and micropore pore volume were 2106.96 m²/g, 1824.85 m²/g, 0.87 cm³/g, and 0.71 cm³/g). When the current density was 0.5 A/g, the specific capacitance was as high as 634.50 F/g. A series of physical and electrochemical characterizations have shown that the purification of coal tar pitch reduced the content of impurity metals, which changed the pore structure of the activated carbon and increased the specific surface area. As a result, more opportunities are provided for the contact and reaction between C and O, facilitating the formation of C-O bonds. In addition, when the content of metal elements decreased, their interaction with functional groups such as hydroxyl groups reduced, which allowed the hydroxyl group to form more C-O bonds with the C. The significant increase of C-O bonds effectively enhanced the specific capacitance of the capacitive carbon. This work provided a cheap and simple method for the preparation of capacitive carbon with excellent performance.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>