Fabrication and enhanced electrochemical properties of α-MoO3 nanobelts using dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid as both reactant and surfactant

Abstract

In this work, we introduce a simple approach to fabricate orthorhombic MoO₃ (α-MoO₃) nanobelts using sodium molybdate and dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid (DBSA). Importantly, DBSA not only acts as a reagent to provide H⁺, but also serves as a surfactant to stabilize and manipulate the morphology of the as-obtained products. The morphology, chemical composition and crystal structure of the as-prepared α-MoO₃ nanobelts were systematically characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, selected area electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (including high-resolution imaging), Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The results show that the dimensions of the as-prepared α-MoO₃ nanobelts are 150–350 nm in width, 50–70 nm in thickness and 1–5 μm in length. Moreover, the electrochemical properties of the samples were analyzed utilizing cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronopotentiometry (CP) and AC impedance in a 0.5 M aqueous Li₂SO₄ solution. These studies reveal that the maximum specific capacitance of the α-MoO₃ nanobelts is much higher than those MoO₃ nanomaterials in recently reported papers. Furthermore, the charge–discharge stability measurements indicate a retention of specific capacitance of about 95% after 500 continuous charge–discharge cycles at a current density of 0.25 A g⁻¹, demonstrating that the as-prepared α-MoO₃ nanobelts can serve as most excellent electrode materials for supercapacitors.