Enhanced electrochemical performance of flexible asymmetric supercapacitor based on novel nanostructured activated fullerene anchored zinc cobaltite

Abstract

The rational design and development of nanostructured materials having unique structural and superior electrochemical activity is urgently required for achieving ultra-high energy storage performance. In this regard, activated fullerene decorated over zinc cobaltite (A-C60-ZCO) has been synthesized and its performance evaluation was displayed towards supercapacitor application. As synthesized nanocomposite shows the enhanced specific capacitance of 593.2 F/g at a scan rate of 1 mV/S and retained the capacitance of 83.7% till 5000 cycles at a high current density of 8 A/g. The enhanced performance can be attributed to the hybrid nature of the prepared material, where A-C60 enhances the stability and conductivity and the ZCO enhances the charge storage owing to its pseudo capacitive nature. The incorporation of A-C60 immensely improved the specific capacitance and cyclic stability of the nanocomposite by enhancing hydrophilicity, conductivity, ion/electron transport ability, redox active functional groups and electroactive sites. Furthermore, the constructed flexible asymmetric supercapacitor device provided an energy density of 36.43 Wh/kg at a power density of 1681.47 W/kg, with a superior cycling performance of 91.06% capacitance retention after 5000 cycles at 6 A/g. Owing to the impressive electrochemical performance A-C60-ZCO can be considered as the potential candidate for supercapacitor application.