Three-Dimensional Core-Branch α-Fe(2)O(3)@NiO/Carbon Cloth Heterostructured Electrodes for Flexible Supercapacitors

A convenient and scalable hydrothermal method was developed for the fabrication of the core-branch Fe(2)O(3)@NiO nanorods arrays directly grown on flexible carbon cloth (denoted as Fe(2)O(3)@NiO/CC). Such a unique architecture was applied as an electrode of the supercapacitors. As a result, the Fe(2)O(3)@NiO/CC exhibited a high areal capacitance ~800 mF cm(−2) at 10 mA cm(−2), which was about 10 times increase with respect to Fe(2)O(3) nanorods array grown on carbon cloth (Fe(2)O(3)/CC). The Fe(2)O(3)@NiO/CC also had the long life cycle (96.8 % capacitance retention after 16,000 cycles) and remarkable rate capability (44.0 % capacitance loss at a very large current density of 100 mA cm(−2)). The superior performance of the Fe(2)O(3)@NiO/CC should be ascribed to the reduction of the contact resistance and the free-standing structure of the flexible electrode. This study provides a novel strategy to construct high-performance flexible electrode materials with unique core-branch structure by incorporating two different pseudocapacitive materials.