The rational design of oxygen vacancies and electronic microstructures of electrode materials is crucial to promoting the energy storage performance. Herein, hierarchical urchin-like NiCoO₂@N-C nanospheres assembled with mesoporous nanorods are reported as high-energy cathode materials to simultaneously satisfy the requirements of supercapacitors and zinc–ion batteries. Results show that the optimisation of annealing temperature in NiCoO₂@N-C products can significantly adjust the composition, electronic structure and generate abundant oxygen vacancies. Benefiting from these merits, the as-synthesised NiCoO₂@N-C electrode delivers excellent capacity (418 C g⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹) and long cycle performance (81% after 5000 cycles). Moreover, our fabricated NiCoO₂@N-C//Zn battery presents an impressive specific capacity of 323 mAh g⁻¹ and energy density of 226.1 Wh kg⁻¹. The energy storage and conversion mechanisms are also explored using the X-ray Absorption Fine Structure, in-situ Raman spectroscopy and ex-situ X-ray diffraction, probing subtle structural evolution of electrode materials during charge and discharge processes. This work may open a new avenue to design the nanomaterials with adjustable surface defects to accelerate various electrochemical reactions.

电极材料的氧空位和电子微结构的合理设计对于提高储能性能至关重要。本文报道了由介孔纳米棒组装而成的分级海胆状 NiCoO ₂ @NC 纳米球作为高能正极材料，可同时满足超级电容器和锌离子电池的要求。结果表明，NiCoO ₂ @NC 产品中退火温度的优化可以显着调整成分、电子结构并产生丰富的氧空位。得益于这些优点，合成后的 NiCoO ₂ @NC 电极提供了出色的容量（418 C g ^-1 at 1 A g ^-1) 和长循环性能（5000 次循环后为 81%）。此外，我们制造的NiCoO ₂ @NC//Zn 电池具有令人印象深刻的323 mAh g ^-1比容量和226.1 Wh kg ^-1的能量密度。还使用 X 射线吸收精细结构、原位拉曼光谱和非原位 X 射线衍射探索了能量存储和转换机制，探索了电极材料在充电和放电过程中的细微结构演变。这项工作可能为设计具有可调节表面缺陷的纳米材料以加速各种电化学反应开辟一条新途径。