Soft- to network hard-material for constructing both ion- and electron-conductive hierarchical porous structure to significantly boost energy density of a supercapacitor

Pingping Yang; Jiale Xie; Chunxian Guo; Chang Ming Li

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2016.06.060

Soft- to network hard-material for constructing both ion- and electron-conductive hierarchical porous structure to significantly boost energy density of a supercapacitor

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2017 Jan 1:485:137-143. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2016.06.060. Epub 2016 Jun 28.

Authors

Pingping Yang¹, Jiale Xie², Chunxian Guo¹, Chang Ming Li³

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials, Faculty of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials & Technologies of Clean Electrical Power Sources, Chongqing 400715, PR China; Institute of Materials Science and Devices, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215011, PR China.
² Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials, Faculty of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials & Technologies of Clean Electrical Power Sources, Chongqing 400715, PR China; Institute of Materials Science and Devices, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215011, PR China; Key Laboratory of Luminescent and Real-Time Analytical Chemistry (Southwest University), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, PR China.
³ Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials, Faculty of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials & Technologies of Clean Electrical Power Sources, Chongqing 400715, PR China; Institute of Materials Science and Devices, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215011, PR China. Electronic address: ecmli@swu.edu.cn.

PMID: 27662025
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2016.06.060

Abstract

Soft-material PEDOT is used to network hard Co₃O₄ nanowires for constructing both ion- and electron-conductive hierarchical porous structure Co₃O₄/PEDOT to greatly boost the capacitor energy density than sum of that of plain Co₃O₄ nanowires and PEDOT film. Specifically, the networked hierarchical porous structure of Co₃O₄/PEDOT is synthesized and tailored through hydrothermal method and post-electrochemical polymerization method for the PEDOT coating onto Co₃O₄ nanowires. Typically, Co₃O₄/PEDOT supercapacitor gets a highest areal capacitance of 160mFcm^-2 at a current density of 0.2mAcm^-2, which is about 2.2 times larger than the sum of that of plain Co₃O₄ NWs (0.92mFcm^-2) and PEDOT film (69.88mFcm^-2). Besides, if only PEDOT as active mass is counted, Co₃O₄/PEDOT cell can achieve a highest capacitance of 567.21Fg^-1, this is the highest capacitance value obtained by PEDOT-based supercapacitors. Furthermore, this soft-hard network porous structure also achieves a high cycling stability of 93% capacitance retention after the 20,000th cycle. This work demonstrates a new approach to constructing both ion and electron conductive hierarchical porous structure to significantly boost energy density of a supercapacitor.

Keywords: Electron conductivity; Hierarchical porous structure; Ion transport; PEDOT; Soft-hard network; Supercapacitor.