Charge Storage by Electrochemical Reaction of Water Bilayers Absorbed on MoS 2 Monolayers

It is well-known that in neutral and acidic aqueous electrolytes, MoS2 monolayers can store charges by adsorption of cations on to the electrode-electrolyte interface as its analog of graphene. Restricted by its low conductivity and the charge storage mechanism, the electrochemical performance of MoS2 monolayer supercapacitor electrode is not satisfactory. It is reported here that water bilayers absorbed on MoS2 monolayers can be involved in charge storage. One proton of each absorbed water molecule can intercalate/de-intercalate the water bilayers during charging/discharging in the alkaline aqueous electrolyte. For two water molecules are present for every Mo atom, the water bilayers can endow MoS2 monolayers an ultrahigh specific capacitance. In this paper, 1T phase MoS2 nanosheets with three monolayers were synthesized by hydrothermal reaction. It presents a specific capacitance of 1120 F g−1 at a current density of 0.5 A g−1 in KOH. As it is assembled with active carbon into a hybrid supercapacitor, the device has an energy density of 31.64 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 425 W kg−1, and gets a specific capacitance retention of 95.4% after 10,000 cycles at 2 A g−1.