Direct growth of Fe3O4-MoO2 hybrid nanofilm anode with enhanced electrochemical performance in neutral aqueous electrolyte

To enhance the electrochemical energy storage performance of supercapacitors (SCs), the current researches are general directed towards the cathode materials. However, the anode materials are relatively less studied. In the present work, Fe3O4-MoO2 (FO-MO) hybrid nano thin film directly grown on Ti substrate is investigated, which is used as high-performance anode material for SCs in Li2SO4 electrolyte with the comparison to pristine Fe3O4 nanorod array. The areal capacitance of FO-MO hybrid electrode was initially found to be 65.0 mF cm−2 at 2 mV s−1 and continuously increased to 260.0% after 50 cycles of activation. The capacitance values were considerably comparable or higher than many reported thin-film iron oxide-based anodes in neutral electrolyte. With the protection of MoO2 shell, the FO-MO electrode developed in this study also exhibited excellent cyclic stability (increased to 230.8% after 1000 cycles). This work presents a promising way to improve the electrochemical performance of iron oxide-based anodes for SCs.