New Ternary Nanocomposites Developed for Supercapacitors by Electrostatic Spinning

However, the preparation of electrode materials is a key point affecting the performance of supercapacitors. When compared with other methods for fabricating nanofibers, electrospinning has attracted more and more attention because of its single steps and cost-effectiveness.

Electrospinning metal oxide fibers is a promising method for generating composite nanofibers with a high specific surface area, high crystallinity, and an increased number of active sites. The resultant nanofibers are ideal for energy storage applications because the nanofibrous surface morphology provides a path for electron transport, which improves the energy storage capacity of the metal oxide.

In this work, the obtained nanocomposites (Cu₂O-Mn₃O₄-NiO) are an ordered arrangement of metal oxide particles (10 nm), with the shape like bead-chain. The acquired Cu₂O-Mn₃O₄-NiO ternary nanocomposites were used as electrode materials to manufacture a supercapacitor.

Electrochemical tests showed that the synthesis of nanocomposites made electrode materials had good electrochemical performance in 6 mol/L KOH electrolyte. The results showed that at a scan rate of 5 mV/s, the specific capacitance of Cu₂O-Mn₃O₄-NiO had a larger specific capacitance of 1306 F/g than NiO, Cu₂O-NiO and Mn₃O₄-NiO.

This ternary nanocomposites improved the electrochemical performance of electrode materials and can be used for efficient supercapacitors.

The successfully synthesized Cu₂O-Mn₃O₄-NiO nanocomposites by electrospinning is adaptable for large and industrial scale production. The structural characterization and composition analysis explained the excellent behavior of Cu₂O-Mn₃O₄-NiO.

Due to the chemical reactions and hence strong interaction between the functional groups and electrolyte ions, Cu₂O-Mn₃O₄-NiO nanocomposites exhibited outstanding electrochemical performance in terms of high specific capacitance and capacitance retention.

This work was supported by Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (20820111964-SJCX19-0754) and (20820111950-SJCX19-0740), National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 31800495), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BK20181040).