Phosphorization boosts the capacitance of mixed metal nanosheet arrays for high performance supercapacitor electrodes

Abstract

Binary transition metal phosphides hold immense potential as innovative electrode materials for constructing high-performance energy storage devices. Herein, porous binary nickel–cobalt phosphide (NiCoP) nanosheet arrays anchored on nickel foam (NF) were rationally designed as self-supported binder-free electrodes with high supercapacitance performance. Taking the combined advantages of compositional features and array architectures, the nickel foam supported NiCoP nanosheet array (NiCoP@NF) electrode possesses superior electrochemical performance in comparison with Ni-Co LDH@NF and NiCoO₂@NF electrodes. The NiCoP@NF electrode shows an ultrahigh specific capacitance of 2143 F g⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹ and retained 1615 F g⁻¹ even at 20 A g⁻¹, showing excellent rate performance. Furthermore, a binder-free all-solid-state asymmetric supercapacitor device is designed, which exhibits a high energy density of 27 W h kg⁻¹ at a power density of 647 W kg⁻¹. The hierarchical binary nickel–cobalt phosphide nanosheet arrays hold great promise as advanced electrode materials for supercapacitors with high electrochemical performance.