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LiCl/PVA gel electrolyte stabilizes vanadium oxide nanowire electrodes for pseudocapacitors
Gongming Wang1, Xihong Lu, Yichuan Ling
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, United States.
Abstract:
Here we report a new strategy to improve the electrochemical stability of vanadium oxide electrodes for pseudocapacitors. Vanadium oxides are known to suffer from severe capacitance loss during charging/discharging cycling, due to chemical dissolution and ion intercalation/deintercalation-induced material pulverization. We demonstrate that these two issues can be addressed by using a neutral pH LiCl/PVA gel electrolyte. The function of the gel electrolyte is twofold: (i) it reduces the chemical dissolution of amphoteric vanadium oxides by minimizing water content and providing a neutral pH medium and (ii) it serves as a matrix to maintain the vanadium oxide nanowire network structure. Vanadium oxide nanowire pseudocapacitors with gel electrolyte exhibit excellent capacitance retention rates of more than 85% after cycling for 5000 cycles, without sacrificing the electrochemical performance of vanadium oxides.
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