Synthesis of Nickel Cobalt and Reduced Graphene Oxide Composite for Use as an Electrode Material with High Supercapacitor Performance

The use of environmentally friendly energy storage systems is known as the best solution to reduce the bad effect of fossil fuels. Supercapacitors have received more attention than other energy storage devices (batteries and fuel cells) due to their high power density, high cycling stability and optimal energy density. The use of inexpensive and available electrode material is the key to the development of supercapacitors in industrial and commercial scales. Using these two together can achieve a morphology with many electrochemically active sites, the combination of oxide supercapacitors with carbon nanocompounds will have a great effect on its electrochemical properties In addition to being cheap and readily available, nickel and cobalt oxides with reduced graphene oxide have a high theoretical specific capacity. In this study electrode material nickel oxide graphene, cobalt oxide (NiCo2O4/NiO/RGO) electrode was synthesized using Sonochemistry method. After synthesis, nanoparticles were mixed with 1:5 ratio of nanoparticles and graphene oxide. The size range of nanoparticles in this nanocomposite is from 30 to 60 nanometers Then, the characterization tests of XRD, FT-IR and SEM were used to determine the crystallographic and morphological properties. Characterization analyses showed that the electrode material of (NiCo2O4/NiO/RGO) was obtained with a hollow microbial morphology. Electrochemical tests of CV, GCD and EIS showed that the (NiCo2O4/NiO/RGO) electrode had excellent supercapacitive performance with a specific capacitance of 400 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g. This performance is related to the synergistic effect of nickel cobalt oxides with RGO, which provide the porosity and active sites necessary to carry out the charge transfer reaction.