Thioacetamide-induced Ce 2 O 2 S nanostructures with tunable morphology for supercapacitors in wide pH range.

Here, Rare-earth metal oxysulfide Ce ₂ O ₂ S nanostructures with tunable morphology are successfully grown on carbon cloth (CC) for supercapacitors (SCs) via a facile hydrothermal process followed by pyrolysis treatment for the first time. The feeding amount of sulfur source thioacetamide (TAA) plays an important role in the formation of Ce ₂ O ₂ S nanostructures with tunable morphology. Adjusting TAA feeding amount from 0.5 to 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 g, the morphology of the resulted Ce ₂ O ₂ S nanostructure can change from pine bark-like agglomerated nanoparticles to fan-shaped nanosheets with edged branches, cuttlefish-like nanostructure with long terminal whiskers and polygon prism with spikes. Among them, Ce ₂ O ₂ S/CC-1.0 g TAA nanostructure with largest specific surface area and abundant mesopores exhibits a high specific capacitance of 670, 321.5 or 588.3 mF cm ^-2 at 1 mA cm ^-2 in an acid, neutral or alkaline electrolyte, respectively. Moreover, Ce ₂ O ₂ S/CC-1.0 g TAA electrode delivers excellent cycling stability with high capacitance retention of 93% after 5000 cycles in alkaline electrolyte. Our findings present a new strategy to fabricate rare-earth metal oxysulfide Ce ₂ O ₂ S nanostructures with controllable morphology and systematically reveal their electrochemical performance for SCs, moreover, provide new perspectives for boosting the preparation and application of metal oxysulfides in energy storage.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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