Novel design of nickel cobalt boride nanosheets-decorated molybdenum disulfide hollow spheres as efficient battery-type materials of hybrid supercapacitors

Fu-Sen Chen; Mani Sakthivel; Zhi-Xiang Jin; Lu-Yin Lin; Kuo-Chuan Ho

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.09.193

Novel design of nickel cobalt boride nanosheets-decorated molybdenum disulfide hollow spheres as efficient battery-type materials of hybrid supercapacitors

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2025 Jan 15;678(Pt C):1022-1035. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.09.193. Epub 2024 Sep 24.

Authors

Fu-Sen Chen¹, Mani Sakthivel¹, Zhi-Xiang Jin¹, Lu-Yin Lin², Kuo-Chuan Ho³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
² Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan. Electronic address: lylin@ntut.edu.tw.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan; Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan; Graduate School of Advanced Technology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan; Advanced Research Center for Green Materials Science and Technology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan. Electronic address: kcho@ntu.edu.tw.

PMID: 39332121
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.09.193

Abstract

Transition metal borides (TMBs) with high theoretical capacitances and excellent electronic properties have attracted much attention as a promising active material of supercapacitors (SCs). However, TMB nanoparticles are prone to conduct self-aggregation, which significantly deteriorates the electrochemical performance and structural stability. To address the severe self-aggregation in TMBs and improve the active material utilization, it is imperative to provide a conductive substrate that promotes the dispersion of TMB during growths. In this work, sheet-like nickel cobalt boride (NCB) was grown on molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) hollow spheres (H-MoS₂) by using simple template growth and chemical reduction methods. The resultant NCB/H-MoS₂-50 was observed with uniform NCB nanosheets structure on the surface of the H-MoS₂ and stronger MB bonding. After optimizing the loading amount of H-MoS₂, the optimal composite (NCB/H-MoS₂-50) modified nickel foam (NF) exhibits a superior specific capacity (1302 C/g) than that of the NCB electrode (957 C/g) at 1 A/g. Excellent rate capability of 84.8% (1104 C/g at 40 A/g) is also achieved by the NCB/H-MoS₂-50 electrode. The extraordinary electrochemical performance of NCB/H-MoS₂-50 is credited to the unique nanosheet-covered hollow spheres structure for facilitating ion diffusion and versatile charge storage mechanisms from the pseudocapacitive behavior of H-MoS₂ and the Faradaic redox behavior of NCB. Furthermore, a hybrid SC is assembled with NCB/H-MoS₂-50 and activated carbon (AC) electrodes (NCB/H-MoS₂-50//AC), which operates in a potential window up to 1.7 V and delivers a high energy density of 76.8 W h kg^-1 at a power density of 850 W kg^-1. A distinguished cycling stability of 93.2% over 20,000 cycles is also obtained for NCB/H-MoS₂-50//AC. These findings disclose the significant potential of NCB/H-MoS₂-50 as a highly performed battery-type material of SCs.

Keywords: Battery-type material; Hybrid supercapacitor; Molybdenum disulfide hollow sphere; Nickel cobalt boride; Self-aggregation.