Boosting the pseudocapacitive response of spinel CoFe2O4 nanoparticles obtained by chemical hydrolysis via fine tuning their thermal-microstructural properties
摘要
Nanocrystalline spinel CoFe2O4 materials have been successfully synthesized by a facile force-driven chemical hydrolysis technique, and the impacts of varying post-synthesis annealing temperature on their morphological, structural, and electrochemical properties have been investigated. Microstructural investigation revealed the formation of a spinel cubic structure of a typical CoFe2O4 nanoparticle, which showed enhanced microstructural properties upon increasing annealing temperature. The optimally improved microstructure, coupled with the exhibition of favorable electrochemical and electrical properties of the CoFe2O4 sample annealed at 800 °C, resulted in an enhanced pseudocapacitive charge storage performance with maximum specific capacitance and capacity values of 756.5 Fg−1 and 57.16 mAhg−1. The presence of interstitial sites enabled fast and efficient ion transport and diffusion attributes for the high electrochemical charge storage outputs. The obtained results suggest that the effectiveness of CoFe2O4 as electrode materials for electrochemical energy storage depends on its microstructural build-up via thermal treatment variations.