Fabrication of 3D microporous Ni foam for growing CoMoO4 nanosheet arrays as high-performance pseudocapacitive electrode

Abstract

A 3D porous Ni foam with pore size in the range of several micrometers can accommodate more CoMoO 4 nanosheet arrays in a limited area with merit of high-efficient electron/ion transportation, thus leading to a high areal performance as pseudocapacitive electrode. • A novel 3D porous Ni foam current collector is fabricated by a scale-up method. • The interconnected pores can be controlled to accommodate electroactive materials with different mass loading values. • The 3DNF@CMO enables a shortened and homogeneous electron/ion transfer pathway. A 3D porous Ni foam (3DNF) with pore and ligament size in the ranging of several micrometers is fabricated via a method of combining nonsolvent induced phase separation (NIPs) and solid-state sintering. Benefiting from the interconnected pores, the pseudocapacitive CoMoO 4 nanosheet arrays can grow on the unique 3DNF (3DNF@CMO) with loading mass of 3.2 mg cm −2 . The 3DNF can act as a connection between internal and external circuit, ensuring rapid and stable electron/ion transfer. Because of these merits, the 3DNF@CMO-8 electrode shows a high area capacitance of 1.53F cm −2 at 3 mA cm −2 and long lifespans surpassing 8000 cycles. These results highlight the importance of rational design of 3D current collectors and reveal a promise for developing idea electrodes for energy storage systems.