Search

Supercapacitors or electrochemical capacitors, as energy storage devices, require very stable positive electrode materials for useful applications. Although most positive electrodes are based on crystalline mixed-metal hydroxides, their pseudocapacitors usually perform poorly or have a short cycle life. High activities can be achieved with amorphous phases. Methods to produce amorphous materials are also not typically amenable towards mixed-metal compositions. It is demonstrated that electrochemistry in an ambient environment can be used to produce a series of amorphous mixed-metal hydroxides with a homogeneous distribution of metals for use as positive electrode materials in a supercapacitor. The integrated performance of the amorphous ternary mixed-metal hydroxide pseudocapacitor is superior to that of crystalline materials. The amorphous Ni-Co-Fe hydroxide supercapacitor is characterized by a long-term cycling stability that retained 94% of its capacity after 20 000 cycles. This is much higher than the cycle life of crystalline devices. These results show the broad applicability of this methodology towards new electrode materials for high-performance supercapacitors, especially amorphous mixed-metal hydroxides, as advanced electrode materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, metal organic framework (MOF) nanostructures have been frequently reported in the field of energy storage, specifically for Li-ion or Na-ion storage. By inter-separating the active sites of metal cluster and organic ligands, MOF nanostructures are exceptionally promising for realizing fast ion exchange and high-efficiency transportation and addressing the intricate issues that the energy-intensive Li-ion batteries have faced over many years. The related ion-storage mechanism remains to be explored. Is the traditional redox reaction mechanism operative for these nanostructure, as it is for transitional metal oxide? Herein, taking [Fe 3 O(BDC) 3 (H 2 O) 2 (NO 3 )]n (Fe-MIL-88B) as an example, an Fe-based metal organic polyhedral nanorods of MIL–88 B structure was designed as an anode for Li-ion storage. When tested at 60 mA g −1 , the nanoporous Fe-MIL–88 B polyhedral nanorods retained a reversible capacity of 744.5 mAh g −1 for more than 400 cycles. Ex situ characterizations of the post-cycled electrodes revealed that both the transition metal ions and the organic ligands contributed to the high reversible specific capacity. The polyhedral nanorods electrodes held the metal-organic skeleton together throughout the battery operation, although in a somewhat different manner than the pristine ones. This further substantiated that some MOF nanostructures are more appropriate than others for stable lithiation/delithiation processes. State-of-the-art CR2032 full cells showed that a high capacity of 86.8 mAh g −1 that was retained after 100 cycles (herein, the capacity for the full cell was calculated based on both the weight of the anode and the cathode, and the charge-discharge rate was 0.25C), when commercial LiFePO 4 powders were used as the cathode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]