Fabrication of ternary composites with polymeric carbon nitride/MoS2/reduced graphene oxide ternary hybrid aerogel as high-performance electrode materials for supercapacitors

Abstract

Electrode materials for supercapacitors have been one of the crucial factors for the successful design of a renewable energy storage device. In this work, we present a bottom-up approach for the large-scale synthesis of three ternary hybrid aerogel nanocomposites, namely CMGA-1, CMGA-2 and CMGA-3, via the facile self-assembly of reduced graphene oxide (rGO), molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) and polymeric carbon nitride nanosheets derived from urea (TE_UCN). The three composites differ from each other only in the content of TE_UCN, with TE_UCN wt% of 33%, 60% and 71.4%, respectively, for CMGA-1, CMGA-2 and CMGA-3. All three composites possess a large surface area with a hierarchical porous structure. The influence of the wt% of TE_UCN in these composites on the electrochemical performance of the electrode was investigated using charge–discharge curves. When used as the electrode for supercapacitors, the nanocomposites exhibit pseudocapacitive behavior in NaCl solution. Comparing the three nanocomposites investigated here, CMGA-3 showed the best electrochemical performance, with a specific capacitance of 467 F g⁻¹ and the ability to retain up to 80.4% of this capacitance even after 2000 cycles, demonstrating good stability and improved cyclic performance. The excellent supercapacitance of CMGA-3 is due to its high surface area (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area = 432.3 m² g⁻¹) and low equivalent series resistance of 3.24 Ω.