Highly ordered mesoporous NiCo2O4 with superior pseudocapacitance performance for supercapacitors

Conventional NiCo2O4 without mesopores prepared by direct thermal decomposition of an appropriate solution mixture consisting of Co(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O and Ni(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O does not provide superior pseudocapacitance performance due to the inadequate redox reaction during the charge and discharge process when used as an electrode material for pseudocapacitors. In this work, we demonstrate the synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous NiCo2O4 by a nanocasting method and examine its electrochemical performance by means of cyclic voltammetry and the galvanostatic charge-discharge method. The highly ordered mesoporous NiCo2O4 prepared using mesoporous silica KIT-6 as a template presents an exceptionally high specific capacitance (1699 F g(-1) at a current density of 1 A g(-1)) and an excellent cycling stability (similar to 104.1% retention after 10 000 cycles). In addition, other 3D mesoporous nanostructures (mesoporous Co3O4 and mesoporous NiO) synthesized by a similar nanocasting method also show outstanding pseudocapacitive performance. Thus, the effective design of highly ordered mesoporous electrodes demonstrated in this work offers a promising strategy for supercapacitors with superior electrochemical properties.