Sonication-Assisted Synthesis of Molybdenum Disulfide Aerogel for the Electrode Materials of Supercapacitors

Abstract

The sonication processing was added in front of the freeze-drying as an intermediate processing before the molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) aerogel was synthesized. It is distinguishing with the traditional hydrothermal reaction to combine the sonication processing and freeze-drying in our method. The structure, morphology, specific surface area and pore size distribution were characterized, and the electrochemical performances were measured in 0.5[Formula: see text]M Na2SO4 electrolyte for the MoS2 aerogel and flower-like MoS2. As for comparison, they are of porous structure and microsphere structure, and their specific surface areas are 55.14[Formula: see text]m2[Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text] and 38.12[Formula: see text]m2[Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text]. The specific capacitances are 166.7[Formula: see text]F[Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text] and 119.2[Formula: see text]F[Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text] at the scan rate of 5[Formula: see text]mV[Formula: see text]s[Formula: see text], and the capacity retentions are 87.7% and 81.6% after 3000 charge/discharge cycles. For the enhanced mechanism, the high specific surface of the MoS2 aerogel causes high specific capacitance, and the unique porous structure could buffer volume expansion to improve retention ability during charge/discharge processes. The MoS2 aerogel may thus be a promising electrode material for supercapacitors.