Porous Carbon Framework with B-Doped NiCo<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub> Nanoclusters for Enhancing the Performance of Carbon Fiber-Based Flexible Supercapacitors
Zhao Wang, Honglong Li, Zongwei Guo, Hao Liang, Jin Lin, Ming Li, Yuhui Ao
Abstract
Adequate atomic doping and multidimensional nanostructure construction are two important means to improve the performance of supercapacitors. Herein, we proposed a simple method to produce high-performance fiber-based electrodes by integrating B-doped NiCo 2 O 4 nanoclusters (B–NCO) with a B, N codoped porous carbon framework (BNC). A 3D porous structure enabled a continuous conductive path and charge storage space, while the doping of B and N atoms increased additional active sites and hydrophilicity. Therefore, BNC can not only provide good interface conditions for B–NCO growth to reduce contact resistance but also be applied as a negative electrode with excellent performance. Notably, the formation of the tip effect can enrich a large number of electrons at the tip of NCO nanoclusters, forming a local electrostatic field and effectively improving the utilization of electrons. The different doping forms of the B atoms provide NCO with higher conductivity and more active sites. Leveraging these attributes, the B–NCO@BNC/CF electrode exhibited excellent mass-specific capacitance of up to 2015.8 F g –1 at a current density of 0.5 A g –1 . The resulting B–NCO@BNC/CF//BNC/CF achieved a high energy output of 86.7 Wh kg –1 and long-term durability. This work proposes a low-cost and effective way to fabricate hierarchically structured electrodes for wearable supercapacitors.