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Defect engineered nickel hydroxide nanosheets for advanced pseudocapacitor electrodes

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Abstract

While the past years have witnessed great achievement in pseudocapacitors, the inauguration of electrode materials of high-performance still remains a formidable challenge. Moreover, the capacity and rate capability of the electrode depends largely on its electrical conductivity, which ensures fast charge transfer kinetics in both the grain bulk and grain boundaries. Here, nickel hydroxides with oxygen vacancies are facilely fabricated via a hydrothermal method. The active materials exhibit a high specific capacitance of 3250 F·g−1 and a high areal of capacitance of 14.98 F·cm−2 at 4.6 mA·cm−2. The asymmetric supercapacitor device based on our material delivers a high energy density of ∼ 71.6 Wh·kg−1 and a power density of ∼ 17,300 W·kg−1 and could retain ∼ 95% of their initial capacitance even after 30,000 cycles. In addition, the defect-rich hydroxides demonstrate higher electrical conductivity as well as dielectric constant, which is responsible for the superior pseudocapacitive performance. Our new scientific strategy in terms of taking the advantages of oxygen vacancies might open up new opportunities for qualified pseudocapacitive materials of overall high performances not only for nickel hydroxides but also for other metal hydroxides/oxides.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51972048), Performance subsidy fund for Key Laboratory of Dielectric and Electrolyte Functional Material Hebei Province (No. 22567627H), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2022YFB3706300), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. U23A20605).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110189, China

    Yaohang Gu, Yuxuan Zhang, Xuanyu Wang, Ateer Bao, Bo Ni, Haijun Pan & Xiaoyan Zhang

  2. College of Metallurgy and Energy, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan, 063210, China

    Xiwei Qi

  3. Key Laboratory of Dielectric and Electrolyte Functional Material Hebei Province, School of Resources and Materials, Northeastern University at Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao, 066004, China

    Yaohang Gu, Haijun Pan & Xiaoyan Zhang

  4. School of Resources and Materials, Northeastern University at Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao, 066004, China

    Yaohang Gu, Haijun Pan & Xiaoyan Zhang

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  1. Yaohang Gu
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  2. Yuxuan Zhang
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  3. Xuanyu Wang
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  4. Ateer Bao
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  5. Bo Ni
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  7. Xiaoyan Zhang
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  8. Xiwei Qi
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Correspondence to Yaohang Gu, Haijun Pan or Xiwei Qi.

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Gu, Y., Zhang, Y., Wang, X. et al. Defect engineered nickel hydroxide nanosheets for advanced pseudocapacitor electrodes. Nano Res. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-024-6473-0

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