Molybdenum oxide nanowires based supercapacitors with enhanced capacitance and energy density in ethylammonium nitrate electrolyte

• Synthesis of single crystalline molybdenum oxide nanowires.
• Ethylammonium Nitrate as an electrolyte for high performance large scale psuedocapacitor based energy storage devices.
• Molybdenum oxide nanowires based electrodes shows 8 fold enhancement in Ethylammonium Nitrate electrolyte as compared to water based electrolytes.
• The devices in Ethylammonium Nitrate exhibit excellent stability, retaining 96% of its initial capacity after 3000 cycles.

Orthorhombic molybdenum trioxide (α-MoO3) nanowires as an electrode for electrochemical supercapacitors in ethylammonium nitrate (EAN) electrolyte exhibits a high specific capacitance of 288 Fg−1, which is 8 times higher than the specific capacitance obtained from MoO3 nanowires in water based electrolyte. MoO3 nanowires in EAN electrolyte exhibit energy density of 46.32 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 20.3 kW kg−1 with outstanding cycling stability with specific capacitance retention of 96% over 3000 cycles. We believe that the superior performance of the MoO3 nanowires in EAN based electrolyte is primarily due to its relatively low viscosity (0.28 P at 25 °C), high electrical conductivity (20 mS cm−1 at 25 °C) and large working voltage window. The results clearly demonstrate that EAN as electrolyte is one of the most promising electrolyte for high performance large scale energy storage devices.

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