Transition of hexagonal to square sheets of Co3O4 in a triple heterostructure of Co3O4/MnO2/GO for high performance supercapacitor electrode

Abstract

Cobalt oxide and manganese oxides are promising electrode materials amongst the transition metal oxides (TMOs) for pseudocapacitors. The lack of reversibility and deterioration of capacitance at higher current densities is major flaw in Co3O4 as an electrode for supercapacitor while MnO2 suffers from low electrical conductivity and poor cycling stability. It is inevitable to bridge the performance gap between these two TMOs to obtain a high performance supercapacitor based on environmental benign and earth abundant materials. Herein, we fabricated a hybrid triple heterostructure high-performing supercapacitor based on hexagonal sheets of Co3O4, MnO2 nanowires and graphene oxide (GO) to form a composite structure of Co3O4/MnO2/GO by all hydrothermal synthesis route. The Co3O4 square sheets serves as an excellent backbone with good mechanical adhesion with the current collector providing a rapid electronic transfer channel while the integrated nanostructure of MnO2 NW/GO permits more electrolyte ions to penetrate capably into the hybrid structure and allows effective utilization of more active surface areas. A triple heterostructured device exhibits a high areal capacitance of 3087 mF cm−2 at 10 mV s−1 scan rate along with the exceptional rate capability and cycling stability having capacitance retention of ∼170% after 5000 charge/discharge cycles. The TMOs based pseudocapacitor with the conducting scaffolds anchoring based on graphene derivatives like this will pave an encouraging alternatives for next generation energy storage devices.