Synthesis of Honeycomb-like Co3O4 Nanosheets with Excellent Supercapacitive Performance by morphological controlling derived from the alkaline source ratio

Honeycomb-like CO3O4 nanosheets with high specific surface area were successfully synthesized on porous nickel foam by the facile hydrothermal method followed by an annealing treatment (300 °C), which were used as high-performance supercapacitor electrodes. The effects of mole ratio of hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) and Co(NO3)2 (1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1 and 6:1）as the reactants on morphological evolution and electrochemical performance of the electrodes were investigated in detail. X-ray diffractometry, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy were applied to characterize the structure and morphology of the products. The electrochemical performance was measured by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge/discharge. The results indicated that phase constituents were almost unaffected with the change in mole ratio of HMT and Co(NO3)2. However, the significant morphological evolution of Co3O4 was observed with increasing the mole ratio, which was described as followed: the nanosheets accompanied with a large number of spherical nanoparticles→the formation of some strip-like particles due to the agglomeration of spherical nanoparticles→the formation of new nanosheets resulting from the growth of strip-like particles→the formation of coarse flower-like particles owing to the connection among the nanosheets→the nanosheets gradually covered with flower-like particles. Accompanied with the change, the specific surface area was increased firstly, and then decreased. A maximum was obtained in the HMT and Co(NO3)2 mole ratio of 4:1, which was further validated by CV and galvanostatic charge/discharge tests. The specific capacitance value was 743.00 F·g-1 at 1 A·g-1 in the galvanostatic charge/discharge test, which was apparently higher than those in the other mole ratios (139.11 F·g-1 in 1:1, 280.46 F·g-1 in 2:1, 503.29 F·g-1 in 3:1, 463.75 F·g-1 in 5:1 and 363.74 F·g-1 in 6:1). The change was also observed in the CV test with a scanning rate of 5 mV·s-1 (121.32 F·g-1 in 1:1, 217.33 F·g-1 in 2:1, 559.86 F·g-1 in 3:1, 693.56 F·g-1 in 4:1, 423.35 F·g-1 in 5:1 and 321.64 F·g-1 in 6:1). Co3O4 synthesized in the mole ratio of 4:1 also demonstrated an excellent cyclic performance, in which about 97% of the initial specific capacitance was remained at 1 A·g-1 for 500 cycles in the galvanostatic charge/discharge test. This excellent electrochemical performance was ascribed to high specific surface area of Co3O4 nanosheets that provide enough channels and space for ions transportion.