A Novel CVD Growth of g‐C3N4 Ultrathin Film on NiCo2O4 Nanoneedles/Carbon Cloth as Integrated Electrodes for Supercapacitors

• Published in: ChemElectroChem Vol. 5; no. 22; pp. 3383 - 3390
• Main Authors: Guo, Wen, Ming, Shujun, Chen, Zhen, Bi, Jiajun, Ma, Yajuan, Wang, Jingyu, Li, Tao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim John Wiley & Sons, Inc 13.11.2018
• Subjects: Carbon; Carbon nitride; Cloth; Electrochemical analysis; Electrode materials; Electrodes; energy storage; Graphene; graphitic carbon nitride; Heterojunctions; Nanostructure; Nickel compounds; NiCo2O4; Organic chemistry; Stability; Supercapacitors; Thickness; Thin films; Transition metal oxides; Transition metals; ultrathin film supercapacitor
• ISSN: 2196-0216; 2196-0216
• DOI: 10.1002/celc.201801045

Although g‐C3N4 possesses many features such as a graphene‐like 2D π‐conjugated planar layered structure, high nitrogen content, excellent mechanical strength and flexibility, as well as high thermal and chemical stability, there are only a few studies on the exploration of g‐C3N4 as active materials for supercapacitors. This could be largely attributed to the fact that the above advantages of g‐C3N4 to hybrid with other materials are still not fully established. Herein, we successfully develop a facile low‐temperature CVD method to grow g‐C3N4 ultrathin films with several nanometers thickness on the surface of NiCo2O4 nanoneedles. Subsequently, a NiCo2O4 nanoneedles@g‐C3N4 ultrathin film core‐shell nanostructures/carbon cloth (NiCo2O4 NNs@g‐C3N4/CC) integrated electrode was obtained. Thanks to the ultrathin film, a core‐shell nanostructure, as well as intrinsic features of g‐C3N4, the as‐obtained integrated electrode displays excellent electrochemical performance, exhibiting an areal capacitance of 2.83 F cm−2 as well as high cycling stability (5.88 % loss after 10 000 cycles). Our results clearly demonstrate that the g‐C3N4 ultrathin film obtained through this facile CVD method developed has potential in hybridizing with other transition metal oxides as electrode materials for supercapacitors and, more importantly, this convenient synthesis method may also be widely used for other applications such as designing new heterojunction photocatalysts. Stable progress: A g‐C3N4 ultrathin film coated on NiCo2O4 nanoneedle arrays/carbon cloth is achieved by using a novel CVD method. This is then used as a binder‐free electrode for supercapacitors. Electrochemical tests show that the coating of the g‐C3N4 ultrathin film could significantly enhance the areal capacitance and stability of the electrode.