Lightweight supercapacitor electrodes deliver long-term cycling stability
The electrode is made from a hybrid nickel oxide-iron oxide exterior shell and a conductive iron-nickel core.
In a paper published in the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing, the researchers report the fabrication technique of the hybrid nanostructure electrode. The scientists also demonstrate the electrode’s superior performance compared to existing, non-hybrid supercapacitor electrodes. Since nickel oxide and iron oxide are environmental friendly and cheap materials that are widely available in nature, the novel electrode promises green and low-cost supercapacitors in future.
"This hybrid electrode shows the superior electrochemical performance in terms of high capacitance [the ability to store electrical charge] of nearly 1415 farad per gram, high current density of 2.5 ampere per gram, low resistance and high power density," said Ashutosh K. Singh, the primary researcher at the Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Material Sciences at the S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. "It also has a long-term cycling stability, in other words, the electrode could retain nearly 95 percent of initial capacitance after cycling or charging and discharging 3,000 times."
Inspired by previous research on improving conductivity via doping different metal oxide materials, Singh and Kalyan Mandal, another researcher and a professor at the S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, mixed nickel oxide and iron oxide as a hybrid material and fabricated the novel core/shell nanostructure electrode.
"By changing the materials and morphologies of the electrode, one can manipulate the performance and quality of the supercapacitors," explained Singh.
In Singh’s experiment, the core/shell hybrid nanostructure was fabricated through a two-step method. Using a standard electro-deposition technique, the researchers grew arrays of iron-nickel nanowires inside the pores of anodized alumina oxide templates, then dissolved the templates to obtain the bare hybrid nanowires. After that, the researchers exposed the nanowires in an oxygen environment at high temperature (450 degrees Celsius) for a short time, eventually developing a highly porous iron oxide-nickel oxide hybrid shell around the iron-nickel core.
High Performance Supercapacitor Electrodes. Left: field emission scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope micrographs; Right: sectional view of single hybrid nanostructure. Credit: Ashutosh K. Singh and Kalyan Mandal/S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, India
"The advantage of this core/shell hybrid nanostructure is that the highly porous shell nanolayer provides a very large surface area for redox reactions and reduces the distance for ion diffusion process," said Singh. The supercapacitors store charges through a redox reaction, which involves a material giving up electrons and transporting ions through another material at the interface between electrode and electrolyte. Larger redox reaction surfaces are essential for achieving a higher power density for supercapacitors.
"The conductive Fe-Ni core provides a highway to accelerate the transport of electrons to the current collector, which would improve the conductivity and electrochemical properties of the electrode, realizing high-performance supercapacitors," noted Singh.
Using techniques called cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge/discharge methods, Singh and Mandal studied the electrochemical properties of the hybrid material electrode. Comparing with the counterpart, non-hybrid electrodes like nickel/nickel oxide and iron/iron oxide core/shell nanostructure electrodes, the hybrid material electrode demonstrated higher capacitance, higher energy density and higher charging/discharging time.
"For example, the current density of the hybrid electrode is three and 24 times higher than that of nickel/nickel oxide and iron/iron oxide electrodes, respectively," said Singh. "The comparative results show remarkable enrichment in the electrochemical activities of nickel/nickel oxide and iron/iron oxide electrodes after combining them together, which suggests the hybrid electrode’s better supercapacitive properties."
One feature of Singh’s fabrication technique is that it does not require extra binder materials. According to Singh, binding materials are commonly used in the fabrication of carbon or graphene based supercapacitors for attaching redox active material on the current collector. Without the mass of binding materials, the hybrid electrode is a good candidate to make lightweight supercapacitors.
"The remarkable electrochemical performances and material properties suggest that the iron oxide-nickel oxide hybrid core/shell nanostructure could be a reliable and promising candidate for fabricating the next generation lightweight, low-cost and green supercapacitor electrodes for real life application," Singh said.
Reference
‘Engineering of High performance Supercapacitor Electrode based on Fe-Ni/Fe2O3-NiO Core/Shell Hybrid Nanostructures’ is authored by Ashutosh K. Singh and Kalyan Mandal.
Related articles and links:
https://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/117/9/10.1063/1.4913218
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