Porous PEDOT Network Coated on MoS2 Nanobelts toward Improving Capacitive Performance

Molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) is a representative transition-metal chalcogenide holding great potential in electrochemical energy devices. However, poor conductivity and limited stability hinder practical applications of 2H phase MoS2. Herein, we report the successful fabrication of 2H phase MoS2 nanobelts on carbon cloth (CC) to achieve a flexible CC-MoS2 electrode toward supercapacitor application. MoS2 features as nanobelt bundles that are strongly coupled with carbon fibers, yielding a hierarchically porous framework facilitating fast ion kinetics. Electrochemical polymerization of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiopheneon on the surface of CC-MoS2 produces a porous poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) network which connects those MoS2 nanobelts and the CC substrate together and creates structurally continuous ionic and electronic pathways. As a result, the CC-MoS2-PEDOT ternary electrode offers a large areal capacitance of 3628 mF cm(-2), exhibiting a capacitance retention of 80% in 5-15 mA cm(-2) and showing a satisfactory cyclic performance with a capacitance retention of 83% after 10,000 cycles in 1.0 M aqueous LiClO4. The significantly improved performances as compared with the CC-MoS2 counterpart highlight the remarkable contribution of the porous and conductive PEDOT network to the charge storage capacity of the hybrid electrode.