Electrochemical properties of hydrophilic NiCo2O4 in situ grown on biomass carbon networks for Lithium ion batteries

Abstract Electrochemically active NiCo2O4 nanostructure was fabricated on carbon substrate by a facile metal seeding method. SEM result showed that the NiCo2O4 on carbon substrate presented mesoporous microspheres morphology. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of NiCo2O4/carbon fabric sample was about 168.042 ​m2 ​g−1 with dominant pore diameter of 5.925 ​nm NiCo2O4/carbon fabric composites manifested the charge specific capacity of 1132.7 ​mA ​h g −1 at 1.0 ​A ​g−1 after 1000 cycles, representing a high capacity retention of 94.23%. More importantly, NiCo2O4/carbon fabric sample exhibited a superior Li+ diffusion coefficient, which were calculated to be 7.8984 ​× ​10−12 ​cm2 ​s−1. The battery performance was mainly attributed to the interfacial interaction between NiCo2O4 nanostructure and carbon fabric, which provided good electrolyte diffusion and large electrode-electrolyte contact area during the charge/discharge processes. The method was simple but very effective, it could be extended to other high-capacity carbon structured materials for Lithium ion batteries.