Biotemplate preparation of multilayered TiC nanoflakes for high performance symmetric supercapacitor

Designing and developing efficient electrode materials with high performance for application in energy storage systems remain a challenge. Recently, transition metal carbide materials have attracted significant attention as a component of next-generation energy storage device. In this study, TiC nanoflakes were successfully prepared by a simple and highly effective biotemplate method using a cotton towel as a carbon source and a sacrificial template. The phases and structures of the as-obtained samples were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Raman analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The results demonstrated that layered TiC nanoflakes were significantly influenced by the sintering time at high temperatures. Our work is the first report, to the best of our knowledge, on the application of the biotemplate method for TiC nanoflakes.The TiC nanoflakes electrode showed the highest specific capacitance of 276.1 Fg(-1) at 5 mVs(-1) and capacitance retention of 94% over 1000 cycles at the current density of 10 Ag-1. Furthermore, symmetric supercapacitors based on TiC nanoflakes electrodes (276.1 Fg(-1)) were fabricated, and their electrochemical properties were investigated. The prepared symmetric TiC//TiC supercapacitor exhibited a maximum specific capacitance of 194.5 Fg(-1) and a capacitance retention of 80.5% after 20,000 cycles. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest capacitance reported for TiC-based symmetric supercapacitors. Moreover, the TiC//TiC symmetric supercapacitor in series having a high energy density (41 Whkg(-1)) and power density (2.3 kWkg(-1)) with outstanding cycling stability illuminated a white light-emitting diode (LED) indicator for 10 min, highlighting the promising potential of TiC for next generation energy storage system.