Facile hydrothermal synthesis of cobaltosic sulfide nanorods for high performance supercapacitors

Abstract

With high reactivity, electrical conductivity, theoretical specific capacitance and well redox reversibility, transition metal sulfides are considered as a promising anode material for supercapacitors. Hence, we designed a simple two-step hydrothermal process to grow Co₄S₃ nanorod arrays in situ on flexible carbon cloth substrates. Benefited from the larger specific surface area of nanoarrays, the binder-free Co₄S₃ electrode demonstrates a higher specific capacity of 1.97 F cm⁻² at a current density of 2 mA cm⁻², while the Co₃O₄ electrode has a capacity of only 0.07 F cm⁻² at the same current density. Surprisingly, at a high scan rate of 200 mV s⁻¹, the synthesized Co₄S₃ electrode still maintains almost 100% of its initial capacitance after 5000 cycles. Moreover, when using the prepared Co₄S₃ and MnO₂ electrode as the anode and cathode, the fabricated flexible supercapacitor obtains a high volumetric energy density of 0.87 mW h cm⁻³ (power density of 0.78 W cm⁻³) and a peak power density of 0.89 W cm⁻³ (energy density of 0.50 mW h cm⁻³). The excellent electrochemical properties imply that there is a large market for the prepared materials in flexible energy storage devices.