Graphitic Carbon Quantum Dots Modified Nickel Cobalt Sulfide as Cathode Materials for Alkaline Aqueous Batteries

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) as a new class of emerging materials have gradually drawn researchers’ concern in recent years. In this work, the graphitic CQDs are prepared through a scalable approach, achieving a high yield with more than 50%. The obtained CQDs are further used as structure-directing and conductive agents to synthesize novel N,S-CQDs/NiCo(2)S(4) composite cathode materials, manifesting the enhanced electrochemical properties resulted from the synergistic effect of highly conductive N,S-codoped CQDs offering fast electronic transport and unique micro-/nanostructured NiCo(2)S(4) microspheres with Faradaic redox characteristic contributing large capacity. Moreover, the nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (N-rGO)/Fe(2)O(3) composite anode materials exhibit ultrahigh specific capacity as well as significantly improved rate property and cycle performance originating from the high-capacity prism-like Fe(2)O(3) hexahedrons tightly wrapped by highly conductive N-rGO. A novel alkaline aqueous battery assembled by these materials displays a specific energy (50.2 Wh kg(−1)), ultrahigh specific power (9.7 kW kg(−1)) and excellent cycling performance with 91.5% of capacity retention at 3 A g(−1) for 5000 cycles. The present research offers a valuable guidance for the exploitation of advanced energy storage devices by the rational design and selection of battery/capacitive composite materials. [Image: see text] ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s40820-019-0355-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.