Low-cost and high-performance electrode materials based on BiCoO3 microspheres

Ternary metal oxides have great potential for chemical storage devices because of their outstanding synergistic effects as well as rich redox reactions. However, there are limited reports of 3D structure BiCoO3 materials and relevant electrochemical properties. Meanwhile, the study of BiCoO3 is reasonably important for underlying metal oxides researches. In this work, we have successfully developed a 3D urchin-like BiCoO3 material without using any template and surfactant. For the supercapacitor application, the BiCoO3 material showed a specific capacitance of 152 F g−1 at the current density of 1 A g −1, and this value exhibited a rate capability of 82.3% at a high current density of 10 A g −1. Furthermore, the sample showed the ideal cycling stability (92.7% retention after 5000 times cycles at the current density of 1 A g −1 and nearly invariable specific capacitance during different current density cycles). These results suggest that the obtained urchin-like BiCoO3 sample has superb electrochemical performances which suggest its promising applications as renewable and clean energy storage devices electrode materials in the future.