In-Situ Assembly of MoS2 Nanostructures on EHD-Printed Microscale PVDF Fibrous Films for Potential Energy Storage Applications

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has been widely utilized to fabricate free-standing electrodes in energy-related fields. In terms of fabrication, the two most challenging limitations of 3D printed electrodes are the poor printing resolution and simple structural dimension. Here we proposed a novel process to fabricate molybdenum disulfide-polyvinylidene fluoride (MoS2-PVDF) hierarchical electrodes for energy storage applications. The 20-layer microscale PVDF films with a stable fiber width of 8.3 +/- 1.2 mu m were fabricated by using electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing. MoS2 nanostructures were synthesized and assembled on the microscale PVDF fibers by using hydrothermal crystal growth. The structural and material investigations were conducted to demonstrate the geometrical morphology and materials component of the composite structure. The electrochemical measurements indicated that the MoS2-PVDF electrodes exhibited the typical charge-discharge performance with a mass specific capacitance of 60.2 +/- 4.5 F/g. The proposed method offers a facile and scalable approach for the fabrication of high-resolution electrodes, which might be further developed with enhanced specific capacitance in energy storage fields.