Titanium oxynitride coated graphite paper electrodes for light-weight supercapacitors

Abstract

The rapid development of smart electronics devices has stimulated intensive research on flexible supercapacitors with high mechanical tolerance and energy density. Up to date, most of the asymmetric devices are fabricated using carbon-based materials as negative electrode materials. However, the lower capacitance of carbon-based materials limited its applicability widely. Also, the device unavoidably carries unnecessary mass and volume, leads to poor contact and performance to repeated bending of devices, and occupies more space in the electronics devices. Herein, we prepared flexible, light-weight, and thin graphite paper current collectors to fabricate flexible supercapacitors. Further, the titanium oxynitride (TiOxNy) coatings were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering over a flexible and light-weight graphite substrate as a potential negative electrode. The presence of nitrogen content in transition metal oxynitrides adds wettability to the material; hence more electrolyte ions get adsorps onto the surface of the electrode owing to their hydrophilic nature. The resultant TiOxNy/graphite electrode exhibited a high areal capacitance of 62 mF cm−2 and also showed 100% capacitance retention even after 1500 GCD cycles. The results of a series of tests indicated that the flexible electrode has better capacitive performance, suggesting that as-prepared film is a favorable candidate for light-weight and flexible supercapacitors.