Construction of few layered metallic MoS2 microspheres using glucose induced carbon spheres and its application in symmetric supercapacitor device

Metallic molybdenum disulfide microspheres are constructed by successful growth of ultrathin 1 T-MoS2 nanosheets over carbon spheres in a controlled manner, as a framework to provide large electrochemically active sites. The developed metallic 1 T-MoS2/carbon microspheres enhance the electrochemical energy storage efficiency, where the carbon acts as a conductive backbone to the structure and facilitates smooth charge transfer kinetics during charge-discharge. The reduced number of layers on the 1 T-MoS2/carbon microspheres obviously decreases the restacking tendency of individual MoS2 nanosheets, which in turn reduces the degree of agglomeration. Here, the microsphere electrode material exhibits a high specific capacity (capacitance) of 346C/g (692 F/g) at a specific current of 1 A/g in three-electrode studies. The electrode maintains high capacity retention of 50% when there is a 10 fold increment in the current. The practicability of the electrode material is tested by designing a two-electrode symmetric device, and which delivers a high energy density of 46 Wh/kg with a power density of 775 W/kg. This symmetric cell provides 87% capacity retention over 20,000 charge/discharge cycles, implying its high stability. This nano-architecture promises a new strategy for synthesizing efficient metallic MoS2 based electrode materials for energy storage applications.