Facile synthesis of self-assembled porous NiO nanostructures and their application to supercapacitor electrodes

Abstract

Porous NiO nanostructures constructed with NiO nanoparticles have been synthesized via a facile solvothermal route with only nickel acetate tetrahydrate dissolved in ethylene glycol solvent and then followed by calcination. The products are characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and determined to be pure phase NiO nanostructures assembled from NiO nanaparticles. The as-prepared porous NiO nanostructures show a reversible specific capacity of 522Fg−1 after 1000 cycles at 2Ag−1 as electrochemical supercapacitor electrode materials. Such a satisfactory electrochemical performance is related to the special nanosized active NiO particles and porous structures. The results indicate that porous NiO nanostructure appears to be promising electrode material for supercapacitor applications.