Construction of 3D interconnected NiCo2S4/bio-carbon coated Ni foam as binder-free electrode for high-performance supercapacitor

Abstract

Although transition metal hydroxides/sulfides are considered as promising potential electrode materials for supercapacitors due to their excellent electrochemical activity, the low electrical conductivity, easy agglomeration of nanomaterials and poor rate performance seriously hinder their practical applications. Herein, we construct 3D interconnected binder-free electrode NiCo2S4/bio-carbon coated nickel foam (NiCo2S4/GRCNF) by growing NiCo2S4 nanosheets on the surface of low-cost and highly conductive GRCNF substrate via a simple hydrothermal reaction followed with subsequent sulfidation. As suggested by systematic characterizations, the advantages of obtained NiCo2S4/GRCNF include that the ultrathin 3D interconnected network of NiCo2S4 can furnish massive electrochemically active sites for faradic reaction, and the highly conductive GRCNF substrate promotes electron transfer and meanwhile prevents the aggregation of NiCo2S4 nanosheets. With a high specific capacitance of 7.71 F cm−2 at 3 mA cm−2, NiCo2S4/GRCNF has a huge application advantage over the contrast samples Ni-Co LDH/NF (3.29 F cm−2) and Ni-Co LDH/GRCNF (5.97 F cm−2). In addition, NiCo2S4/GRCNF shows a much higher rate performance (82.1%) than Ni-Co LDH/NF (44.5%) and Ni-Co LDH/GRCNF (66.4%). Furthermore, hybrid supercapacitor NiCo2S4/GRCNF//GNPC which is assembled with NiCo2S4/GRCNF as the anode possesses an impressive energy density of 0.429 mWh cm−2 at a power density of 7.023 mW cm−2 and good cycling stability (82.3% over 5000 cycles). The outstanding electrochemical performance of NiCo2S4/GRCNF suggests that the reported strategy provides new inspiration for the design and preparation of new binder-free composite electrodes for electrochemical energy storage.