AUTHOR=Zhang Miao , Li Xifei , Wang Xiaohua , Li Dejun , Zhao Naiqin 

TITLE=Three-Dimensional Core-Branch α-Fe2O3@NiO/Carbon Cloth Heterostructured Electrodes for Flexible Supercapacitors

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry

VOLUME=7

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2019.00887

DOI=10.3389/fchem.2019.00887

ISSN=2296-2646

ABSTRACT=<p>A convenient and scalable hydrothermal method was developed for the fabrication of the core-branch Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>@NiO nanorods arrays directly grown on flexible carbon cloth (denoted as Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>@NiO/CC). Such a unique architecture was applied as an electrode of the supercapacitors. As a result, the Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>@NiO/CC exhibited a high areal capacitance ~800 mF cm<sup>−2</sup> at 10 mA cm<sup>−2</sup>, which was about 10 times increase with respect to Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> nanorods array grown on carbon cloth (Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>/CC). The Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>@NiO/CC also had the long life cycle (96.8 % capacitance retention after 16,000 cycles) and remarkable rate capability (44.0 % capacitance loss at a very large current density of 100 mA cm<sup>−2</sup>). The superior performance of the Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>@NiO/CC should be ascribed to the reduction of the contact resistance and the free-standing structure of the flexible electrode. This study provides a novel strategy to construct high-performance flexible electrode materials with unique core-branch structure by incorporating two different pseudocapacitive materials.</p>