J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2018, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (6): 976-982.DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2017.11.048

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Electrodes based on nano-tree-like vanadium nitride and carbon nanotubes for micro-supercapacitors

Nadir Ouldhamadouchea,1, Amine Achourb,1,*(), Raul Lucio-Portocd, Mohammad Islame, Shahram Solaymanif, Ali Armang, Azin Ahmadpourianh, Hamed Achouri, Laurent Le Brizoualj, Mohamed Abdou Djouadik, Thierry Broussekl   

  1. aLaboratoire de Génie Physique Université Ibn Khaldoun, BP P 78 Zaaroura, 14000 Tiaret, Algeria;
    bNational Institute of Scientific Research, 1650 Bd. Lionel-Boulet, Varennes, QC J3X1P7, Canada
    cUniversidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Facultad de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica, San Nicolás de los Garza, 66450, Nuevo León, Mexico;
    dUniversidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Centro de Innovación, Investigación y Desarrollo en Ingeniería y Tecnología, Apodaca, 66600, Nuevo León, Mexico;
    eDeanship of Scientific Research, Advanced Manufacturing Institute, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
    fDepartment of Physics, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
    gVacuum Technology Group, ACECR, Sharif Branch, Tehran, Iran
    hYoung Researchers and Elite Club, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
    iInstitute of Condensed Matter Physics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland;
    jUniversity of Rennes 1, Institut d'Electronique et de Télécommunications, IETR - UMR CNRS 6164, Campus de Beaulieu -Bat 11D 263 Av General Leclerc 35042, Rennes cedex, France;
    kInstitut des Materiaux Jean Rouxel (IMN), Universite de Nantes, CNRS, 2 rue de la Houssiniere, BP32229, 44322, Nantes Cedex 3, France
    lReseau sur le Stockage Electrochimique de l'Energie (RS2E), FR CNRS, 3459, France
  • Received:2017-05-30 Revised:2017-08-17 Accepted:2017-08-23 Online:2018-06-10 Published:2018-06-05
  • Contact: Achour Amine

Abstract:

Vanadium nitride (VN) was deposited by DC-sputtering on a vertically aligned carbon nanotube (CNTs) template for the purpose of nano-structuration. This led to the fabrication of hierarchically composite electrodes consisting of porous and nanostructured VN grown on vertically aligned CNTs in a nano-tree-like configuration for micro-supercapacitor application. The electrodes show excellent performance with an areal capacitance as high as 37.5 mF cm-2 at a scan rate of 2 mV s-1 in a 0.5 M K2SO4 mild electrolyte solution. Furthermore, the capacitance decay was only 15% after 20,000 consecutive cycles. Moreover, the capacitance was found to increase with VN deposit thickness. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses of the electrodes before and after cycling suggest that the oxide layers that form at the VN surface is the responsible for the redox energy storage in this material. Such electrodes can compete with other transition metal nitride based electrodes for micro-supercapacitors.

Key words: Vanadium nitride, CNTs, Micro-supercapacitors, Surface chemistry