Three-dimensional nickel nitride (Ni3N) nanosheets: free standing and flexible electrodes for lithium ion batteries and supercapacitors

The search for suitable electrode materials for electrochemical storage devices has led to the development of new electrode materials. Metal nitrides are regarded as an attractive and promising class of electrode materials for high-performance energy storage devices because they exhibit excellent electrical conductivity over the corresponding metal oxides and have considerably higher capacity than carbon based materials. Moreover, designing of different electrode nanostructures has been demonstrated to effectively improve the storage performance of energy storage devices. Hence, three dimensional (3D) nickel nitride (Ni3N) nanosheets were successfully fabricated on a carbon cloth by a simple hydrothermal and post annealing process that can be used directly as electrode storage materials for flexible lithium ion batteries and supercapacitors. Due to the electrode, architectures that demonstrated fast electron transport via direct connection to the flexible substrate and facile ion diffusion paths that ensured the participation of every nanosheet in the ultrafast electrochemical reaction, the 3D flexible Ni3N/carbon composites cloth exhibited a high capacity or capacitance and possessed an excellent rate performance.