In-situ construction of carbon cloth-supported amorphous/crystalline hybrid NiCo-sulfide with permeable concrete-like morphology for high-performance solid-state hybrid supercapacitors

Constructing the amorphous/crystalline hybrid materials has been proved to be an effective strategy to boost the specific capacity, rate capability, and cycle durability of supercapacitors. Presently, the amorphous/crystalline hybrid materials are generally constructed by simply overlaying one amorphous material on or under another crystalline material. In this work, we successfully constructed carbon cloth-supported amorphous/crystalline hybrid NiCo-sulfide with a permeable concrete-like morphology (NiCo-sulfide@CCH) by in-suit partially con-verting the crystalline NiCo-sulfide into the amorphous phase in a specially-made quartz reactor. The obtained NiCo-sulfide@CCH material exhibits a high specific capacity of 250.16 mAh/g (1801.13F g-1 or 900.6C g-1) at 1 A/g, outstanding cycle stability, and good rate capability. The solid-state hybrid supercapacitor (SSHSC) device based on the prepared NiCo-sulfide@CCH material delivers high specific energy of 57.71 Wh kg- 1 at a specific power of 1.56 kW kg- 1 with remarkable specific energy retention of 97.9 % after 5000 cycles. The developed scheme is expected to promote the application of the amorphous/crystalline hybrid materials in high-performance supercapacitors.

Automated summary

Constructing amorphous/crystalline hybrid materials is an effective strategy to enhance the performance of supercapacitors. In this study, carbon cloth-supported amorphous/crystalline hybrid NiCo-sulfide with a unique morphology was successfully constructed by converting crystalline NiCo-sulfide into the amorphous phase. The resulting material exhibited high specific capacity, cycle stability, and rate capability, making it suitable for high-performance supercapacitors.