Electrochemical evaluation of cobalt oxide incorporated MoS₂ ex/PANI ternary composite as a promising electrode for high-performance symmetric and asymmetric supercapacitors

The ever-increasing demand for flexible and lightweight energy sources for wearable and portable electronic gadgets has encouraged the growth of supercapacitor technology. Here, the article introduces an easy, facile route of hydrothermal reaction followed by an in-situ oxidative polymerization method for synthesizing cobalt oxide decorated exfoliated MoS₂/polyaniline (MoS₂ ex-PANI-Co₃O₄) ternary composite. Detailed structural, texture, and morphological characterizations are carried out to confirm the composite formation. The supercapacitor electrodes were fabricated by using ternary composite in both three and two-electrode cell systems, and the electrochemical properties were analyzed and compared with MoS₂ ex/PANI binary complex using 3 M H₃PO₄ aqueous electrolyte. The ternary composite electrodes showed remarkable improvement in the energy storage performance upon cobalt incorporation and delivered a specific capacitance of 421 F g^− 1 at the scan rate of 2 mV s^− 1. A novel composite electrode commendably promotes the mixed storage mechanism of electric double-layer and faradaic energy storage. To examine the practical utility of synthesized samples, a prototype of a symmetric and asymmetric supercapacitor device with electrode configuration MoS₂ ex-PANI-Co₃O₄//MoS₂ ex-PANI-Co₃O₄ and MoS₂ ex-PANI-Co₃O₄//Activated carbon respectively were fabricated and supercapacitive studies were carried out. The ternary composite device in both configurations exhibits good cyclic stability of 99% up to 10,000 consecutive charge-discharge cycles. This work provides a simple approach to boost the supercapacitive properties of the corresponding binary composite and act as a reliable and efficient solution for future advanced energy storage technology.