Carbon-Induced Generation of Hierarchical Structured Ni 0.75 Co 0.25 (CO 3 ) 0.125 (OH) 2 for Enhanced Supercapacitor Performance.

Hierarchical nanostructures with heteroatom doping have been considered as an important component in electrode materials for advanced supercapacitors. Herein, with the aid of C, N, and S codoped Ni0.75 Co0.25 (CO3 )0.125 (OH)2 /C (NSH) with a hierarchical structure was synthesized through a facile one-step hydrothermal method. Notably, it is the first report on a carbon precursor as a structure inducer for designing a three-dimensional (3D) carnation-like hierarchical structure. Thanks to the carbon induction effect and the introduction of N/S dopants, the obtained NSH with a 3D architecture exhibits superior performances as electrode materials for supercapacitors. For example, NSH offers a high specific capacity of 277.3 mAh/g at 0.5 A/g. Moreover, the assembled NSH//reduced graphene oxide hydrogel-based hybrid supercapacitor exhibits high energy densities of 44.4 and 11.7 Wh/kg at power densities of 460 W/kg and 9.8 kW/kg, respectively. This result opens up opportunities for carbon-induced methods to control the morphology and structure of other similar materials.