Co-Decorated Tellurium Nanotubes for Energy Storage Applications
Prangya Bhol, Swarnalata Swain, Satyaranjan Jena, Kushal D. Bhatte, Chandra Sekhar Rout, Manav Saxena, Arvind H. Jadhav, Akshaya K. Samal
Abstract
This paper explicitly discusses the synthesis of Co-decorated Te nanotubes (NTs) using Te NTs as the sacrificial template and the evaluation of their electrochemical performance. First, one-dimensional (1D) Te NTs were synthesized and characterized by spectroscopic and microscopic tools such as UV–visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analyses. The as-prepared hexagonal Te NTs (h-Te NTs) possess diameters of about 35 ± 5 nm and lengths of about 500 ± 50 nm and were used for the synthesis of Co-decorated Te NTs. The 1D nanostructure with excellent conductivity enables the material to show excellent electrochemical performance. The asymmetric assembly of the CoTe-2//AC electrode material displayed a high specific capacitance of 147 F g–1 (specific capacity, 162 C g–1) at a current density of 2 A g–1 in 4 M KOH electrolyte. In addition to that, the assembly of CoTe-2//AC achieved an excellent energy density of 51.1 W h kg–1 at a power density of 2294 W kg–1 and confirmed the as-synthesized Co-decorated Te NTs to be an excellent electrode material.