Single step hydrothermal synthesis of carbon nanodot decorated V2O5 nanobelts as hybrid conducting material for supercapacitor application

Abstract

Carbon nanodot (C-dot) decorated V2O5 (C-dot@V2O5) nanobelts are synthesized by single step, low cost hydrothermal route at low temperature by using V2O5 and glucose as precursors. We have not added any extra organic solvents or surfactants which are commonly used for the preparation of different nanostructures of V2O5. Electron microscopy analyses demonstrate that C-dot is entrapped inside V2O5 nanobelts which in turn enhance the conductivity and ion propagation property of this composite material. The C-dot@V2O5 nanobelts exhibit an excellent three electrode electrochemical performance in 1 M Na2SO4 and which showed a specific capacitance of 270 F g−1 at 1 A g−1, which is ~ 4.5 times higher than the pristine V2O5 electrode. The electrochemical energy storage capacity of this hybrid is investigated towards solid state supercapacitor application also for the first time by employing electrophoretically deposited C-dot as the counter electrode and Li based gel as the electrolyte. The hybrid material delivers an energy density of 60 W h kg−1 and a reasonably high power density of 4.1 kW kg−1 at 5 A g−1 and good cycling stability and capacitance retention of about 87% was observed even after 5000 cycles. Above mentioned results clearly show that C-dot embedded hybrid, nanostructured transition metal oxides has great potential towards fabrication of electrodes for energy storage devices.