Publication Date

Fall 2017

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Dr. Yan Cao (Director), Dr. Bangbo Yan and Dr. Jeremy Maddox

Degree Program

Department of Chemistry

Degree Type

Master of Science

Abstract

Supercapacitors, as promising energy storage devices, have been of interest for their long lifespan compared to secondary batteries, high capacitance and excellent reliability compared to conventional dielectric capacitors. Transition metal oxides can be applied as the electrode materials for pseudocapacitors and offer a much higher specific capacitance. Co3O4 is one of the most investigated transition metal oxides for supercapacitor. Besides simple monometallic oxides, bimetallic transition oxides have recently drawn growing attention in electrochemical energy storage. They present many unique properties such as achievable oxidation states, high electrical conductivities because of the coexistence of two different cations in a single crystal structure.

This study focuses on the bimetallic iron cobalt oxide based materials for the application of energy storage. We selected iron as the substituent in spinel Co3O4, by virtue of its abundant and harmless character. Four types of iron cobalt oxides based electrode materials with different morphologies and components have been synthesized for the first time. The hydrothermal method was the main strategy for the synthesis of iron cobalt based materials, which achieved the control of morphology and ratio of components. Multiple characterization methods, including SEM, TEM, XRD, XPS, TGA, BET, have been applied to study the morphologies and nano/submicron structures. The electrochemical properties of as-fabricated samples were performed by electrochemical workstation. In addition, in order to investigate the practical application of electrode materials, asymmetric supercapacitors have been assembled by using as-prepared samples as the positive electrodes and activated carbon as the negative electrodes.

Disciplines

Inorganic Chemistry | Materials Chemistry | Other Materials Science and Engineering

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