Hierarchical carbon-coated manganese nitride 3D porous/nickel nanostructure as an electrode material for supercapacitors

Abstract

The present work reports an effective synthesis method for developing a carbon-coated three-dimensional (3D) porous manganese nitride electrode on a stainless-steel (SS) substrate. The microstructural studies revealed that the carbon-coated metal nitride was deposited uniformly over the 3D-Ni/SS current collector. The carbon-coated manganese nitride (C-Mn3N2) on the 3D Nickel (3D-Ni) electrode delivered a specific capacitance of 311 F g−1 (156 mF cm−2) at 2 A g−1. Moreover, the electrode retained 97.12 % of its capacitance even after 5000 charge–discharge cycles at 5 A g−1, revealing excellent electrochemical stability. These results highlight that the 3D architecture delivered better electrochemical performance, mainly due to the large electroactive area, open porous structure, and direct attachment of electroactive materials with the current collector.