Needle-like CoO nanowire composites with NiO nanosheets on carbon cloth for hybrid flexible supercapacitors and overall water splitting electrodes

A nanoscale core–shell NiO@CoO composite is prepared on flexible carbon cloth for electrodes in supercapacitors and overall water splitting. The needle-like CoO nanowires with NiO nanosheets as the active materials improve the elemental constituents as well as surface area. The NiO@CoO electrode boasts a capacity of 2.87 F cm(−2) (1024.05 F g(−1)) at 1 A g(−1) current density, and even at a large current density of 20 A g(−1) the retention ratio is 80.9% after 5000 cycles. The excellent specific capacity with high rate capability can be ascribed to the unique structure which increases the area of the liquid–solid interface and facilitates electron and ion transport, improving the utilization efficiency of active materials. The asymmetric hybrid supercapacitor prepared with the core–shell electrode shows the energy output of 40.3 W h kg(−1) at 750 W kg(−1) with a better retention (71.7%) of specific capacitance after 15 000 cycles. In addition, linear sweep voltammetry is performed to assess the performance of the electrode in water splitting and the electrode shows excellent activity in the OER as manifested by a Tafel slope of 88.04 mV dec(−1). Our results show that the bifunctional structure and design strategy have large potential in energy applications.