Construction of NiCo₂O₄ nanoflake arrays on cellulose-derived carbon nanofibers as a freestanding electrode for high-performance supercapacitors

Abstract

Cellulose has a wide range of applications in many fields due to their naturally degradable and low-cost characteristics, but few studies can achieve cellulose-nanofibers by conventional electrospinning. Herein, we demonstrate that the freestanding cellulose-based carbon nanofibers are successfully obtained by a special design of electrospinning firstly, pre-oxidation and high-temperature carbonization (1600 °C), which display a superior electrical conductivity of 31.2 S·cm^–1 and larger specific surface area of 35.61 m²·g^–1 than that of the polyacrylonitrile-based carbon nanofibers (electrical conductivity of 18.5 S·cm^–1, specific surface area of 12 m²·g^–1). The NiCo₂O₄ nanoflake arrays are grown uniformly on the cellulose-based carbon nanofibers successfully by a facile one-step solvothermal and calcination method. The as-prepared cellulose-based carbon nanofibers/NiCo₂O₄ nanoflake arrays are directly used as electrodes to achieve a high specific capacitance of 1010 F·g^–1 at 1 A·g^–1 and a good cycling stability with 90.84% capacitance retention after 3000 times at 10 A·g^–1. Furthermore, the all-solid-state symmetric supercapacitors assembled from the cellulose-based carbon nanofibers/NiCo₂O₄ deliver a high energy density of 62 W·h·kg^–1 at a power density of 1200 W·kg^–1. Six all-solid-state symmetric supercapacitors in series can also power a ‘DHU’ logo consisted of 36 light emitting diodes, confirming that the cellulose-based carbon nanofiber is a promising carbon matrix material for energy storage devices.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

cellulose / carbon nanofibers / NiCo₂O₄ / supercapacitors

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Key Support Project of State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials (Grant No. 21M1060212), Open Project of Shanghai Key Laboratory of Lightweight Structural Composite Materials (Grant No. 2232019A4-02), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51503086) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and Graduate Student Innovation Fund of Donghua University (Grant No. CUSF-DH-D-2022013).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11705-022-2268-6 and is accessible for authorized users.

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