Construction of Hierarchical NiCo2S4@Ni(OH)2 Core-Shell Hybrid Nanosheet Arrays on Ni Foam for High-Performance Aqueous Hybrid Supercapacitors

Abstract

In this work, we report a novel battery-type electrode of three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical NiCo2S4@Ni(OH)2 core-shell hybrid nanosheet arrays on Ni foam for supercapacitors. The highly interconnected NiCo2S4 nanosheets are utilized as ideal conductive scaffolds, while ultrathin and mesoporous Ni(OH)2 shell nanosheets are controllably deposited on them via a facile electrodeposition method. The optimized NiCo2S4@Ni(OH)2 hybrid electrode demonstrates a high areal capacity of 680μAh/cm2 (240.3mAh/g in specific capacity) at 5mA/cm2, with excellent rate performance (94.9% with current density increased to 100mA/cm2) and cycling stability (81.4% over 2000 cycles at 40mA/cm2). Moreover, an aqueous hybrid supercapacitor (HSC) device has been successfully assembled with the NiCo2S4@Ni(OH)2 hybrid nanosheets and activated carbon (AC) as the positive and negative electrodes, respectively. The HSC device exhibits high energy density (53.3Wh/kg at 290W/kg), high power density (6420W/kg at 32.1 Wh/kg), as well as excellent cycling stability (98.8% over 2000 cycles at 20mA/cm2), suggesting the great potential of this hybrid nanostructure as promising electrode materials for high-performance supercapacitors.