Sulfur Nanoparticle-Decorated Nickel Cobalt Sulfide Hetero-Nanostructures with Enhanced Energy Storage for High-Performance Supercapacitors

Abstract

Transition-metal sulfides exaggerate higher theoretical capacities and were considered a type of prospective nanomaterials for energy storage; their inherent weaker conductivities and lower electrochemical active sites limited the commercial applications of the electrodes. The sheet-like nickel cobalt sulfide nanoparticles with richer sulfur vacancies were fabricated by a two-step hydrothermal technique. The sheet-like nanoparticles self-combination by ultrathin nanoparticles brought active electrodes entirely contacted with the electrolytes, benefiting ion diffusion and charges/discharges. Nevertheless, defect engineers of sulfur vacancy at the atomic level raise the intrinsic conductivities and improve the active sites for energy storage functions. As a result, the gained sulfur-deficient NiCo2S4 nanosheets consist of good specific capacitances of 971 F g−1 at 2 A g−1 and an excellent cycle span, retaining 88.7% of the initial capacitance over 3500 cyclings. Moreover, the values of capacitance results exhibited that the fulfilling characteristic of the sample was a combination of the hydrothermal procedure and the surface capacitances behavior. This novel investigation proposes a new perspective to importantly improve the electrochemical performances of the electrode by the absolute engineering of defects and morphologies in the supercapacitor field.