Carbon nanotubes aerogels dispersed by thermal excitation on Ni Foam@NiCo2O4 nanoneedles with enhanced properties for supercapacitor

Herein, the method of free arc thermal excitation is developed to disperse CNTs agglomerations to fluffy CNTs aerogels on Ni foam@NiCo2O4 nanoneedles (NF@NiCo2O4/CNTs). NF@NiCo2O4/CNTs is evaluated as an electrode for supercapacitor and shows remarkable electrochemical properties, which is resulted from the synergistic effect of high conductive CNTs aerogels and sufficient active sites of NiCo2O4 nanoneedles. The mass specific capacity and rate capability of NF@NiCo2O4/CNTs are 20% and 14% higher than that of NF@NiCo2O4 due to the high conductivity of CNTs aerogels. The assembled NF@NiCo2O4/CNTs//activated carbon (AC) device exhibites an exellent energy density of 43.2 Wh kg(-1) when the power density is 801 W kg(-1). The asymmetric device also has a high cycling stability that the energy density can remain 85% after 5000 cycles. More importantly, the new strategy offers an ingratiating strategy to disperse CNTs losslessly, meanwhile provides a new view into the combination of CNTs and various active materials for supercapacitor electrodes. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.