Surface enhanced Co-Mn double hydroxide coronal architectures for hybrid energy storage

Abstract

Tailoring of surface-enhanced materials is vital towards achieving enhanced energy storage. In order to achieve this, hybrid material combinations often used in traditional vertically stacked morphologies. However, the inherent nature of poor conductivity and aggregation results in a bottleneck in exploiting such materials' full potential. In particular, the hybrid composites of layered double hydroxide (LDH) architectures suffer from restacking and results in poor charge transport. To mitigate these issues, the rational design of a graphene-based interlinked framework is vital. The interfacial phenomena associated with graphene's charge transport properties are also of considerable interest for manoeuvring graphene-based hybrid material architectures. Herein, we report the synthesis of Co-Mn LDH coronal hybrids with radially aligned LDH lamellae on graphene-based core shells. The synthesis process involves spherical graphene oxide core shells obtained from GO encapsulated SiO2 spheres to prepare hollow coronal LDH hybrids. Without any harsh reagents, self-sacrificial removal of the SiO2 core occurs. The process also helps formulate open porous graphene channels, which help in an efficient charge transfer process. The charge transfer efficiency of LDH becomes superior by incorporating the electrically conductive graphene-based nano core framework. The battery type hybrid material shows an enhanced energy storage capacity of ~770 Cg−1 at a current density of 1 Ag−1.