Facile synthesis of MOF derived CoSe2 nanoparticles embedded in N-doped carbon nanosheet array and application for supercapacitor

Metal–organic framework (MOF)-derived composites of transition metal oxides and porous carbon show great potential for energy storage applications. Selenylation is an effective strategy to improve the electrochemical properties of electrode materials. A facile one-step derivation and selenylation of MOFs is proposed here to obtain CoSe2 nanoparticles embedded into an N-doped carbon skeleton material (CoSe2/NC). Moreover, the composite is directly grown on nickel foam as nanosheet arrays, rather than on other materials as powders. The CoSe2/NC electrode with special construction exhibits a high capacity of 120.2 mA h g–1 at 1 A g–1 and an excellent cyclic ability of 8% loss after 10,000 cycles. An asymmetric supercapacitor CoSe2/NC-NF//AC displays a maximum energy density of 40.9 W h kg–1 at 980 W kg–1. Moreover, the device has demonstrated that it can successfully charge a mobile phone. The outstanding performance indicates promising potential of CoSe2/NC-NF electrodes for supercapacitors.