Figure 1 illustrates the preparation process of NiCo2O4 on CNFs. Firstly, CNFs were obtained by the thermal treatment of electrospun PAN nanofibers. Then CNFs were treated by solvent and NiCo2(OH)6 nanosheets were grown on modified CNFs by a hydrothermal method to form core-shell structures. After annealing, CNFs-NiCo2O4 was finally obtained. As the morphology and thickness of NiCo2O4 grown on CNFs would greatly influence the performance of the composite, it’s necessary to investigate the interface of CNFs. Figure 2 showed the contact angel images of pure CNFs and modified CNFs by different solvents. The contact angle of the pure CNFs was as high as 116–117。, which indicated it is hydrophobic (Fig. 2(a)). That it’s not conducive for NiCo2(OH)6 nanosheets growing uniformly on CNFs by hydrothermal method. Figure 2(b-e) are the contact angle images of modified CNFs treated with different solvents at different time and table S1 listed the corresponding contact angel value. Compared to CNFs treated by KOH, H2SO4 and H2O2, the much lower contact angle of CNFs treated by HNO3 and KMnO4 presented they had much better hydrophilic performance. The CNFs treated by KMnO4 could even be totally wetted immediately. FTIR was used to study the surface structure of CNFs and modified CNFs (see Fig S1). The result showed CNFs treated by HNO3 and KMnO4 have large amount of stretching vibration bands of C − O at around 1135 cm− 1, which help to improve the surface hydrophilic performance of CNFs and as active sites to beneficial for the NiCo2O4 to grow on. While C − O vibration peak nearly could not be detected in the products treated by KOH, H2SO4 and H2O2.
In order to evaluate the influence of surface treatment on the growing of NiCo2O4 on CNFs, the morphology and microstructure of CNFs-NiCo2O4 were investigated by SEM. As shown in Fig. 3(a), the surface of pure CNFs was smooth and arranged randomly to form conductive networks. Numerous irregular micrometer-scale pores between the carbon nanofibers could enhance electron transfer rate among cathodes and offer sufficient channels for cathode breathing[23]. Figure 3(b-e) showed the SEM images of different structured CNFs-NCO. It can be clearly observed that NiCo2O4 nanosheets can uniformly grow on CNFs modified by HNO3 (Fig. 3(c)) and KMnO4 (Fig. 3(e)). On the contrary, few NiCo2O4 nanosheets growed on CNFs modified by KOH (Fig. 3(b)), H2SO4 (Fig. 3(d)) and H2O2 (Fig. 3(f)), as the NiCo2O4 was prone to aggregate. All the results proved the growing of NiCo2O4 on CNFs would be greatly influenced by surface treatment of different solvents. Figure 3 (g) was the photo of synthesized CNFs fibrofelt. With the decoration of NiCo2O4, CNFs-NCO fibrofelt remain the same macrostructure of pure CNFs and exhibited good flexibility, as shown in Fig. 3 (h, i).
To further analyze the distribution of NiCo2O4 on CNFs, Energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) mapping was performed. As shown in Fig. 4(a-e), the Ni, Co, and O elements are uniformly distributed around CNFs. The core-shell structure could be clearly observed from Fig. 4(f), NiCo2O4 nanoflakes wrapped uniformly around the CNFs core. The diameter of CNFs is measured to be around 195 nm and the hybrid structure was about 567 nm in width. EDX result of remarked area in CNFs-NCO4 also demonstrated the existence of Ni, Co, O and C elements.
XRD was also used to characterize the component of CNFs-NCO composites, as shown in Fig. 5(a). The XRD pattern of pure CNFs displayed a broad peak at around 22.5o corresponding to (002) diffraction planes, demonstrating carbon formation in graphite phase during the synthesis process of CNFs. XRD patterns of the CNFs-NCO composite were compared with those of the standard PDF card (JCPDS-20-0781). The diffraction peaks at 30.9, 36.6, 44.5, 58.9 and 64.9° corresponded to the (220), (311), (400), (511) and (440) crystal planes of NiCo2O4, respectively. To investigate the electronic and structural properties of CNFs and CNFs-NCO composites, Raman spectroscopy was also performed (Fig. 5(b)). Raman spectra of CNFs displayed two bands including D (1355 cm− 1) and G (1597 cm− 1): The D band corresponded to the amount of disorder and its intensity indicated the degree of edge chirality and the G band corresponded to the E2g phonon vibration of sp2 carbon atom. For the CNFs-NCO composites, both the D and G bands of the carbon material were suppressed, while the peaks at 165, 491 and 644 cm− 1 corresponded to the F2g, Eg and A1g vibrational modes of NiCo2O4 were also observed. This also demonstrated the surface of the CNFs substrate was covered by the NiCo2O4.
The elemental and chemical bonding states of the CNFs-NCO4 were studied by XPS as well. Figure 6(a) showed the spectra of CNFs-NCO4, in which there existed characteristic peaks for C, O, Co and Ni elements. The O 1s spectra (Fig. 6b) showed three peaks with binding energies of 529.2 eV, 531.0 eV and 532.7 eV, which were attributed to metal-oxygen bonds (Ni-O-Co), double-bonded oxygen C = O-C, and single-bonded oxygen C-O-C, respectively. In Ni2p spectrum of CNFs-NCO4 (Fig. 6c), the binding energies at 854.2 and 871.5 eV belong to Ni2+, and those at 855.4 and 872.8 eV belong to Ni3+[24, 25]. The Co2p spectrum in Fig. 6(d) showed two spin-orbit doublet peaks, one doublet peak at binding energies of 796.5 and 779.6 eV belong to Co3+ species, while the other at 798.2 and 781.9 eV is from Co2+ species.
To evaluate the electrochemical properties of the different CNFs-NCO composites, CV and galvanostatic charge-discharge tests were carried out by a three-electrode system in 2.0 M KOH aqueous electrolyte. Figure 7(a) was CV curve of the various CNFs-NCO electrodes at a scan rate of 20 mV/s. A pair of redox peaks can be observed within the potential range from 0 to 0.6 V, revealing the pseudocapacitive characteristics mainly from the faradaic redox reactions of M-O/M-O-OH (where M refers to Ni or Co). The larger integral area was detected in the CV curve of the CNFs-NCO4 electrode compared with the other four electrodes, indicating its superior specific capacitance. Figure 7(b) was galvanostatic charge/discharge curves of the various CNFs-NCO electrodes at 1A/g. The CNFs-NCO4 electrode showed longer charging and discharging durations, exhibiting a superior electrochemical performance compared to other electrode systems. Figure 7(c) showed the CV curve of the CNFs-NCO4 electrode at scan rates from 2 to 50 mV s− 1. It is noted that the shape of CV curves showed no obvious change and the redox peaks showed a slight shift with the increase of the scan rate, which could be explained as the weak electrode polarization[26]. The CV curve of the CNFs-NCO1, CNFs-NCO2, CNFs-NCO3 and CNFs-NCO5 electrode at different scan rates as show in Fig. S2. Also the change of specific capacitance with the current density was studied. From Fig. 7(d), the charge/discharge curves of the CNFs-NCO5 at a current density of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 A g− 1 show a stable platform, which correspond to the obvious redox peaks in CV curves. The charge/discharge curves of the CNFs-NCO1, CNFs-NCO2, CNFs-NCO3 and CNFs-NCO5 electrode at different current density as show in Fig. S3.
Figure 7(e) shows the specific capacitance of the different CNFs-NCO electrodes at different current densities. The specific capacitances of the CNFs-NCO4 electrodes at different currents of 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20 A g− 1, were calculated using above equation to be 1175, 1145, 1067, 983, and 912 F g− 1, respectively. Cycling stability performance is also highly required in supercapacitors. Figure 7(f) shows the specific capacitance and coulombic efficiency at current density of 5 A g− 1. After 3000 continuous cycles, the capacitance of CNFs-NCO4 electrode could maintain 93% of initial value, indicating good cycling stability. The coulombic efficiency of electrode is around 94%, demonstrating high reversibility of the flexible carbon-based electrode. The inset of Fig. 7(f) shows the GCD curves of the first and last five cycles with a current density of 5A g− 1. It can be observed that the last five cycles charge-discharge time maintained as long as 93% of the first 5 cycles, also demonstrating high capacitance after 3000 cycles. All of these indicate the CNFs-NCO4 electrode exhibited good cycling stability, which could be attributed to the uniform distribution of NiCo2O4 nanosheets on the surface of CNFs.