Controllable morphology transformation of hierarchical-porous CoMoSi/C metal hydroxide nanosheets from sugarcane bagasse as green sources for high performance supercapacitors and oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Dual-function electrode materials for energy production and storage require careful design of nanostructures, with several components. This study focused on developing high-performance supercapacitors (SCs) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts using metal hydroxide (MOH) nanosheets (NSs) derived from biogenic sugarcane bagasse (BSCB). The MOH NSs were transformed into hierarchically porous CoMoSi/C OH NSs catalysts via a controllable morphology transformation and carbonization process. The hierarchically porous CoMoSi/C OH NSs exhibited outstanding SCs performance, with a specific capacitance of 427 F g−1 at 0.5 Ag−1 with a 98 % capacitance retention rate for 15,000 cycles. In addition, the CoMoSi/C OH NSs catalyst attained a lower overpotential of 197 mV at 10 mA cm−2 with a Tafel value of 84 mV dec−1 towards electrocatalytic OER performance. Therefore, this study demonstrated the potential use of bio-derived electrocatalysts with controllable morphological transformations for the development of high-performance electrode materials for energy applications.