Single-Crystalline, Metallic TiC Nanowires for Highly Robust and Wide-Temperature Electrochemical Energy Storage.
Customized electrode materials with good temperature adaptability and high-rate capability are critical to the development of wide-temperature power sources. Herein, high-quality TiC nanowires are uniformly grown on flexible carbon cloth as free-standing electric-double-layer supercapacitor electrode. The TiC nanowires, 20-40 nm wide and 3-6 µm long, are single-crystalline and highly conductive that is close to typical metal. Symmetric supercapacitors are constructed with ionic liquid electrolyte and TiC nanowires electrodes as wide-temperature and long-cycle stable power source. Ultrastable high-rate cycling life of TiC nanowire arrays electrodes is demonstrated with capacitance retention of 96.8% at 60 °C (≈440 F g-1), 99% at 25 °C (≈400 F g-1), and 98% at -25 °C (≈240 F g-1) after 50 000 cycles at 10 A g-1. Moreover, due to high electrical conductivity, the TiC nanowire arrays show ultrafast energy release with a fast response time constant of ≈0.7 ms. The results demonstrate the viability of metal carbide nanostructures as wide-temperature, robust electrode materials for high-rate and ultrastable supercapacitors.
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, P. R. China.
Xinhui
X
Xia
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, P. R. China.
Jiye
J
Zhan
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, P. R. China.
Yu
Y
Zhong
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, P. R. China.
Xiuli
X
Wang
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, P. R. China.
Jiangping
J
Tu
School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 637371, Singapore.
Hong Jin
HJ
Fan
carbon cloth; electrochemical capacitors; nanowires; temperature-dependent supercapacitors; titanium carbides