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Hierarchical Ni-Co-S@Ni-W-O core–shell nanosheet arrays on nickel foam for high-performance asymmetric supercapacitors

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Abstract

Nickel cobalt sulfides (Ni-Co-S) have attracted extensive attention for application in electronic devices owing to their excellent conductivity and high electrochemical capacitance. To facilitate the large-scale practical application of Ni-Co-S, the excellent rate capability and cyclic stability of these compounds must be fully exploited. Thus, hierarchical Ni-Co-S@Ni-W-O (Ni-Co-S-W) core/shell hybrid nanosheet arrays on nickel foam were designed and synthesized herein via a facile three-step hydrothermal method, followed by annealing in a tubular furnace under argon atmosphere. The hybrid structure was directly assembled as a free-standing electrode, which exhibited a high specific capacitance of 1,988 F·g−1 at 2 A·g−1 and retained an excellent capacitance of approximately 1,500 F·g−1 at 30 A·g−1, which is superior to the performance of the pristine Ni-Co-S nanosheet electrode. The assembled asymmetric supercapacitors achieved high specific capacitance (155 F·g−1 at 1 A·g−1), electrochemical stability, and a high energy density of 55.1 W·h·kg−1 at a power density of 799.8 W·kg−1 with the optimized Ni-Co-S-W core/shell nanosheets as the positive electrode, activated carbon as the negative electrode, and 6 M KOH as the electrolyte.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51672109), National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2015CB932600), Program for HUST Interdisciplinary Innovation Team (No. 2015ZDTD038) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University (No. 2017KFKJXX007), Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province for Excellent Young Scholars (No. ZR2016JL015), Scientific Research Foundation of Zhejiang A&F University (No. 2014FR077).

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  1. Weidong He and Zhifu Liang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics and Technology, University of Jinan, 336 West Road of Nan Xinzhuang, Jinan, 250022, China

    Weidong He, Zhifu Liang, Keyu Ji & Xijin Xu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, 430074, China

    Tianyou Zhai

  3. School of Engineering, Zhejiang A & F University, Hangzhou, 311300, China

    Qingfeng Sun

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  1. Weidong He
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  2. Zhifu Liang
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Correspondence to Qingfeng Sun, Tianyou Zhai or Xijin Xu.

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He, W., Liang, Z., Ji, K. et al. Hierarchical Ni-Co-S@Ni-W-O core–shell nanosheet arrays on nickel foam for high-performance asymmetric supercapacitors. Nano Res. 11, 1415–1425 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1757-2

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