High electrochemical performance of cobalt ions-doped Ni3Se4 boosted by its highly conductive hierarchical framework

Abstract

Battery-type materials have the intrinsic feature of poor electrical conductivity, significantly affecting their electrochemical performance. At the same time, the low cycling stability of these materials is a key factor weakening the feasibility of their application in supercapacitors (SCs). Although various strategies based on nanoengineering are adopted to address these two issues, it seems that the progress so far does not prove the significant effectiveness of these strategies. In this work, a battery-type material, cobalt ions-doped Ni3Se4, is synthesized using a hydrothermal selenization procedure to address the two issues mentioned above. We preliminarily demonstrate that the electrochemical activity and cycling stability of battery-type materials depend on their intrinsically high conductivity, given that these materials have the proper structure and composition. Based on high electrical conductivity, the cobalt ions-doped Ni3Se4 exhibits high capacitive performance and remarkable cycling stability due to the synergistic effect between Ni and Co and the porous nanosheets self-supported structure. The result of this work proves that the cobalt ions-doped Ni3Se4 with the highly conductive hierarchical framework is a promising electrode material for SCs.