Convenient Design of Hollow Co₃O₄ Nanostructure on Carbon Cloth for Flexible Supercapacitors

Abstract

We proposed a new approach to construct zeolitic imidazolate frameworks-67 (ZIF-67) powders directly on carbon cloth without any conductive agent and adhesion agent and the ZIF-67 nanoparticles on carbon cloth were successfully converted into hollow Co₃O₄ nanostructure via a facile calcination process. Compared with original ZIF-67 powders, the Co₃O₄@CC electrode materials had admirable specific capacitance of 1 164.8 F·g⁻¹ at an area current density of 2.5 mA·cm⁻². Furthermore, the rate performance remained 42.4% of initial value when the current density was increased to 30 mA·cm⁻² and the specific capacitance maintained 93.4% of initial capacity after 5 000 cycles at an area current density of 10 mA·cm⁻². This strategy may have potential prospect for the application of MOFs in the energy storage and conversion field.

Keywords

metal-organic frameworks / ZIF-67 / Co₃O₄ / electrochemical / supercapacitors