Compression-tolerant supercapacitor based on NiCo2O4/Ti3C2Tx MXene/reduced graphene oxide composite aerogel with...

Compression-tolerant electrodes are critical for developing next-generation wearable energy storage devices. However, most of previous studies on compressible electrodes focus on carbon-based materials, whereas metal-based materials such as spinel metal oxide with faradaic nature have been rarely studied due to their lack of compressibility. Herein, NiCo₂O₄ (NCO) microtubes assembled by ultrathin and mesoporous nanosheets, are deposited on/into Ti₃C₂T_x MXene/reduced graphene oxide aerogel (MGA), an intrinsically compressible host template with high conductivity and specific surface areas. The optimized NCO/MGA-300 sample shows a reversible compressive strain of 60% and a superior durability. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the NCO/MGA-300 heterojunction has high electronic conductivity, fast electron transfer ability, and low adsorption energy for OH^- ions. As a result, the NCO/MGA-300 electrode exhibits superb electrochemical performance in terms of its high gravimetric capacitance (1633F g^-1 at 1 A g^-1), rate performance (1492F g^-1 at 10 A g^-1), and remarkable cycling stability of 86.6% after 10,000 charge-discharging cycles. Moreover, an assembled asymmetric supercapacitor based on compressible NCO/MGA-300 shows stable electrochemical performances under different compressive strains (20%. 40% and 60%), or after 100 compression-release cycles. This research finding demonstrates the possibility of metal-based electrode for wearable devices with high energy storage capability and good compressibility.