Etching-Assisted Crumpled Graphene and Graphene Wrapped Spiky Iron Oxide Particles for Li-Ion Hybrid Supercapacitor

Abstract

From graphene oxide wrapped iron oxide particles with etching/reduction process, high-performance anode and cathode materials of lithium-ion hybrid supercapacitors are obtained in the same process with different etching conditions, which consist of partially etched crumpled graphene (CG) wrapped spiky iron oxide particles (CG@SF) for a battery-type anode, and fully etched CG for a capacitive-type cathode. The CG is formed along the shape of spikily etched particles, resulting in high specific surface area and electrical conductivity, thus the CG-based cathode exhibits remarkable capacitive performance of 210 F g−1 and excellent rate capabilities. The CG@SF can also be ideal anode materials owing to spiky and porous morphology of the particles and tightly attached crumpled graphene onto the spiky particles, which provides structural stability and low contact resistance during repetitive lithiation/delithiation processes. The CG@SF anode shows a particularly high capacitive performance of 1420 mAh g−1 after 270 cycles, continuously increases capacity beyond the 270th cycle, and also maintains a high capacity of 170 mAh g−1 at extremely high speeds of 100 oC. The full-cell exhibits a higher energy density up to 121 Wh kg−1 and maintains high energy density of 60.1 Wh kg−1 at 18.0 kW kg−1. This system could thus be a practical energy storage system to fill the gap between batteries and supercapacitors.