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Synthesis of NiCo2S4-based nanostructured electrodes supported on nickel foams with superior electrochemical performance

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Abstract

NiCo2S4-based nanostructured films have been grown directly onto nickel foams by a facile two-step method, involving the growth of NiCo-precursor and subsequent conversion into NiCo2S4 via a sulfidation process, with the aid of sodium dodecyl surfactant (SDS). This synthesis method enables the fabrication of binder- and conductive additive-free electrodes for supercapacitors. The influence of the surfactant on the crystal structure, morphology, and electrochemical performance of the electrodes has been investigated. The NiCo2S4-SDS films exhibit a complex cellular and hierarchical porous structure, which are different from NiCo2S4-pure films with nanotube arrays structure. Moreover, the electrochemical tests show that the NiCo2S4-SDS nanostructured electrode exhibits an ultrahigh specific capacitance of 2519 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1, which doubles that of the NiCo2S4-pure nanotube arrays electrode. In addition, the NiCo2S4-SDS electrode exhibits excellent cycling stability with 90.7 % capacitance retention at 10 A g−1 after 8000 cycles. In view of the low cost and superior electrochemical performance, the NiCo2S4-SDS electrodes are promising electrode materials for high-performance supercapacitors.

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Acknowledgements

The study is primarily supported by Shanghai Eastern-scholar program and Shanghai Pujiang Program, China. The authors acknowledge the support from the Instrumental Analysis and Research Center of Shanghai University. The electron microscopy work of T. Hu (with J. Luo) is partially supported by the ONR via a MURI Grant No. N00014-11-1-0678, and J. Luo also acknowledges partial supports from NSF for his research on tailoring the surfaces (Grant No. DMR-1320615 for 2013-15) and interfaces (Grant No. CMMI-1436976 for 2014-17) of inorganic materials for energy storage applications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Information Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China

    Tao Zhu, Guoxiong Zhang, Zhenni He, Yisheng Lu, Guiqing Wang, Haibo Guo & Yigang Chen

  2. Department of NanoEngineering, Program of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, La Jolla, San Diego, CA, 92093-0448, USA

    Tao Hu & Jian Luo

  3. China Technology Center, GE Global Research, Shanghai, 201203, China

    Chuan Lin

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  1. Tao Zhu
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Correspondence to Yigang Chen.

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Zhu, T., Zhang, G., Hu, T. et al. Synthesis of NiCo2S4-based nanostructured electrodes supported on nickel foams with superior electrochemical performance. J Mater Sci 51, 1903–1913 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-015-9497-8

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