Heazlewoodite, Ni3S2: An electroactive material for supercapacitor application

Abstract Engineering of nanostructured materials with a unique and uniform morphological design is considered to be a competent candidate for a diverse range of electrochemical energy applications. However, the construction of ball-in-ball transition metal sulfide via the vaporization process remains a big challenge of today’s research community. In this work, carbon encapsulated nickel sulfide (Ni3S2@C) with a complex hollow interior was synthesized and further studied with nitrogen-doped carbon encapsulated nickel sulfide (Ni3S2@NC) for comparison basis. We used metal salt (nickel nitrate) and organic linker (trimesic acid, TMA) as a precursor to synthesize Ni-TMA via a solvothermal method. Next, the sulfidation process was done under 5% H2 balanced argon gas in a tubular furnace to convert into Ni3S2 with encapsulation of carbon. The prepared hybrid material showed ball-in-ball morphology and heazlewoodite mineral phase structure. Furthermore, the prepared materials were examined for electrochemical energy storage properties owing to their well-known faradaic dominant (battery-type) charge storage features and key positive electroactive material for today’s growing hybrid electrochemical capacitor. The nitrogen-doped carbon encapsulated nickel sulfide has demonstrated good electrochemical features like a specific capacity of 442.45 F g-1 at 5 mV s-1 of scan rate and 373.52 F g-1 at 2 A g-1 of current density. Moreover, the material showed excellent capacitance retention of 81% and 70% after 5000 and 10000 cycles run with 100% of coulombic efficiency at 8 A g-1.