A core-sheath holey graphene/graphite composite fiber intercalated with MoS2 nanosheets for high-performance fiber supercapacitors

Abstract One-dimensional fiber-shaped supercapacitors have recently attracted lots of attention as a potential energy storage solution for emerging wearable devices. However, fiber supercapacitors often exhibit low energy storage capacity and poor rate capability due to their small volume, low specific volumetric capacitance, and poor electrode electrical conductivity. Here we demonstrate a novel hydrothermally assembled core-sheath fiber comprised of a graphite fiber core and a MoS 2 nanosheet intercalated holey graphene oxide (HGO) sheath as electrodes for fiber supercapacitors. HGO and MoS 2 nanosheets self-assemble around the graphite fiber core in a space-confined reactor during the hydrothermal synthesis. HGO nanosheets supply abundance channels for electrolyte ion transfer, MoS 2 nanosheets provide large pseudocapacitance, and graphite fibers serve as faster electron transfer highways. The mass loading of MoS 2 is easily tunable. The optimized composite fiber with 34.9 wt% MoS 2 delivers a high volumetric capacitance 421 F cm −3  at the CV scan rate of 5 mV s −1 and the capacitance retention of 51.0% when the scan rate increases from 2 to 100 mV s −1 . The core-sheath fiber enables fast reversible redox kinetics, and its surface capacitive energy storage contributes ∼75–80% of its total energy storage. The assembled solid-state fiber supercapacitor delivers a high device volumetric capacitance of 94 F cm −3  at 0.1 A cm −3 and an energy density of 8.2 mWh cm −3  at the power density of 40 mW cm −3 , outperforming many recently reported fiber supercapacitors. The core-sheath fiber electrode design based on HGO, MoS 2 and graphite fiber cores provides an efficient platform for designing various novel fiber electrodes for potential electrochemical applications.