Coupling PEDOT on Mesoporous Vanadium Nitride Arrays for Advanced Flexible All-Solid-State Supercapacitors

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Flexible supercapacitors are crucial for wearable electronics.
• Developing high-performance electrodes is essential for energy storage.

Purpose of the Study:

• To fabricate novel mesoporous vanadium nitride (VN) composite arrays coupled with poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) for flexible electrodes.
• To enhance the electrochemical stability and performance of flexible supercapacitors.

Main Methods:

• A facile combined wet chemical method involving hydrothermal-nitridation to prepare mesoporous VN nanosheet arrays.
• Coupling VN with electrodeposited PEDOT shell to form VN/PEDOT flexible arrays.
• Assembling an asymmetric flexible supercapacitor cell using VN/PEDOT anode and commercial nickel-cobalt-aluminum ternary oxides cathode.

Main Results:

• The VN/PEDOT flexible arrays exhibited a high specific capacitance of 226.2 F g^-1 at 1 A g^-1.
• Excellent cycle stability was achieved with 91.5% capacity retention after 5000 cycles at 10 A g^-1.
• The assembled asymmetric supercapacitor demonstrated high energy/power density (48.36 Wh kg^-1 at 2 A g^-1, 4 kW kg^-1 at 5 A g^-1) and cycling life (91.6% retention over 10,000 cycles).

Conclusions:

• The developed VN/PEDOT flexible arrays show great potential as advanced electrodes for flexible energy storage.
• This research provides a pathway for constructing hybrid organic-inorganic electrodes for high-performance flexible supercapacitors.
• The findings contribute to the advancement of wearable electronics and energy storage technologies.