Co₃O₄@CoS Core-Shell Nanosheets on Carbon Cloth for High Performance Supercapacitor Electrodes

In this work, a two-step electrodeposition strategy is developed for the synthesis of core-shell Co₃O₄@CoS nanosheet arrays on carbon cloth (CC) for supercapacitor applications. Porous Co₃O₄ nanosheet arrays are first directly grown on CC by electrodeposition, followed by the coating of a thin layer of CoS on the surface of Co₃O₄ nanosheets via the secondary electrodeposition. The morphology control of the ternary composites can be easily achieved by altering the number of cyclic voltammetry (CV) cycles of CoS deposition. Electrochemical performance of the composite electrodes was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge-discharge and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy techniques. The results demonstrate that the Co₃O₄@CoS/CC with 4 CV cycles of CoS deposition possesses the largest specific capacitance 887.5 F·g^-1 at a scan rate of 10 mV·s^-1 (764.2 F·g^-1 at a current density of 1.0 A·g^-1), and excellent cycling stability (78.1% capacitance retention) at high current density of 5.0 A·g^-1 after 5000 cycles. The porous nanostructures on CC not only provide large accessible surface area for fast ions diffusion, electron transport and efficient utilization of active CoS and Co₃O₄, but also reduce the internal resistance of electrodes, which leads to superior electrochemical performance of Co₃O₄@CoS/CC composite at 4 cycles of CoS deposition.