Synthesis of NiO/Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Nanowire Composite with Multi-Layered Network Structure and Its Enhanced...

Multi-layered NiO nanowires linked with a nitrogen-doped carbon backbone grown directly on flexible carbon cloth (NiO/NCBN/CC) was successfully fabricated with a facile synthetic strategy. The NiO/NCBN/CC was further used as a binding-free electrode for flexible energy storage devices, showing a boosted performance including a high capacitance of 1039.4 F g^-1 at 1 A g^-1 and an 83.4% capacitance retention ratio. More importantly, after 1500 cycles, the capacitance retention can achieve 72.5% at a current density of 20 A g^-1. The excellent electrochemical properties of the as-prepared NiO/NCBN/CC are not only attributed to the multi-layered structure that can help to tender unimpeded channels and accommodate the electrolyte ions around the electrode interface during the charge-discharge process, but is also due to the link between the NiO and N-doped carbon backbone and the nitrogen doping on the carbon substrate, which results in extra defects on the surface that could boost the interfacial electron transfer rate of the electrode.