Tailoring a facile electronic and ionic pathway to boost the storage performance of Fe3O4 nanowires as negative electrode for supercapacitor application

Abstract

Today, high-energy applications are devoted to boosting the storage performance of asymmetric supercapacitors. Importantly, boosting the storage performance of the negative electrodes is a crucial topic. Fe3O4-based active materials display a promising theoretical storage performance as a negative electrode. Thus, to get a high storage performance of Fe3O4, it must be tailored to have a higher ionic and electronic conductivity and outstanding stability. Functionalized graphite felt (GF) is an excellent candidate for tailoring Fe3O4 with a facile ionic and electronic pathway. However, the steps of the functionalization of GF are complex and time-consuming as well as the energy loss during this step. Thus, the in-situ functionalization of the GF surface throughout the synthesis of Fe3O4 active materials is proposed herein. Fe3O4 is electrodeposited at the in-situ functionalized GF surface with the crystalline nanowires-like structure as revealed from the various analyses; SEM, TEM, Mapping EDX, XPS, XRD, wettability test, and Raman analysis. Advantageously, the synthetic approach introduces full homogeneous and uniform coverage of the large surface area of the GF. Thus, Fe3O4 nanowires with high ionic and electronic conductivity are characterized by a higher storage performance. Interestingly, Fe3O4/GF possesses a high specific capacity of 1418 mC cm−2 at a potential scan rate of 10 mV s−1 and this value retained to 54% at a potential scan rate of 50 mV s−1 at an extended potential window of 1.45 V. Remarkably, the diffusion-controlled reaction is the main contributor of the storage of Fe3O4/GF electrode as revealed by the mechanistic studies.