Nickel hydroxide and lignocelluloses fibers based flexible paper electrodes for energy storage applications

Abstract

Unconventional and alternative resources are proved incredibly useful for flexible and bendable energy storage devices to meet the demand of modern disposable and bendable technology. Nickle hydroxide [Ni(OH)2] based composites are considered as high-performance electrodes for supercapacitor and batteries applications due to high specific capacitance at higher scan rates. This study presents the fabrication Ni(OH)2 and incorporation of lignocelluloses(LC) fibers as binders to address the inherent rigid structure. Furthermore, electrically conductive properties are address by synthesis of composites with Polypyrrole and Polyaninline. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) results confirm the successful formation of nickel hydroxide whereas scanning microscopy results (SEM) reveal the nanoparticle morphology. Incorporation of LC fibers within Ni(OH)2 particles presented as compact and flexible composite paper electrodes which can be cut with help of scissor in any shape for bulk use. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) confirmed the composite formation and cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements were performed for all the fabricated samples to observe the electrochemical kinetics by which the best specific capacitance is shown by Ni(OH)2/PPy/LC i.e. 630 Fg−1. These fabricated composites can be used further as flexible electrodes in energy storage applications because of enhanced electrochemical properties. Presented flexible Ni(OH)2 based paper sheets will be highly feasible for modern bendable and disposable energy storage devices due to light-weight and environmentally safe characteristics.