Facile synthesis of bio-inspired anemone-like VS4 nanomaterials for long-life supercapacitors with high energy density

Abstract As an important member of the transition-metal chalcogenides (TMCs) family, VS4 has numerous intriguing chemical and physical properties that benefit from its peculiar crystallographic structure. Nowadays, how to achieve the high energy density and long cycle life in supercapacitors remains an open challenge. To address this issue, we propose a bio-inspired nanomaterial structure of anemone-like VS4 that consists of nanorods with a diameter of approximately 30–100 nm and a length of 1–2 μm are synthesized by a facile solvothermal method. The electrochemical performance of anemone-like VS4 as a supercapacitor electrode is systematically tested in three-electrode and two-electrode systems. In the three-electrode configuration, the anemone-like VS4 is exhibiting a remarkably high specific capacitance of 617 F g−1 at a current density of 0.4 A g−1. The fabricated symmetric supercapacitor (two-electrode system) has achieved an excellent energy density (113.6 W h kg−1 at a power density of 720 W kg−1). In addition, the device is showing excellent cycling stability, with 93.8% capacity retention over 12,000 galvanostatic charge-discharge cycles at a current density of 6 A g−1. The results suggest that the anemone-like VS4 has the potential to be used as a high-performance supercapacitor electrode material.