Different metal cation-doped MnO₂/carbon cloth for wide voltage energy storage

Aqueous gel supercapacitors, as an important component of flexible energy storage devices, have received widespread attention for their fast charging/discharging rates, long cycle life and high electrochemical stability under mechanical deformation condition. However, the low energy density of aqueous gel supercapacitors has greatly hindered their further development due to the narrow electrochemical window and limited energy storage capacity. Therefore, different metal cation-doped MnO₂/carbon cloth-based flexible electrodes herein are prepared by constant voltage deposition and electrochemical oxidation in various saturated sulphate solutions. The influence of different metal cations as K⁺, Na⁺ and Li⁺ doping and deposition conditions on the apparent morphology, lattice structure and electrochemical properties are explored. Furthermore, the pseudo-capacitance ratio of the doped MnO₂ and the voltage expansion mechanism of the composite electrode are investigated. The specific capacitance and pseudo-capacitance ratio of the optimized δ-Na_0.31MnO₂/carbon cloth as MNC-2 electrode could be reached 327.55 F/g at 10 mV/s and 35.56% of the pseudo-capacitance, respectively. The flexible symmetric supercapacitors (NSCs) with desirable electrochemical performances in the operating range of 0-1.4 V are further assembled with MNC-2 as the electrodes. The energy density is 26.8 Wh/kg at the power density of 300 W/kg, while the energy density can still reach 19.1 Wh/kg when the power density is up to 1150 W/kg. The energy storage devices with high-performance developed in this work can provide new ideas and strategic support for the application in portable and wearable electronic devices.