Interlayer expanded molybdenum disulfide nanosheets assembly for electrochemical supercapacitor with enhanced performance

Rational structural design for electrode materials is essential for fabricating high performance supercapacitors. In this work, we demonstrated a novel way to prepare incompact MoS2 nanosheets assembled nanorods with the interlayer of MoS2 nanosheets expanded to 0.89 nm, namely layer expanded MoS2 nanorods (LE-MoS2 NRs). The material was characterized by XRD, XPS and electron microscopes. The XRD data and HRTEM images confirmed the existence of expanded interlayer of MoS2 nanosheets. N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms of LE-MoS2 NRs indicated high specific area up to 37.0 m2 g−1. It was found that the expanded interlayer spacing can benefit the ion transportation within the MoS2 interlayers. The as-prepared electrode material showed capacitance up to 231 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 charge-discharge current and cycling stability test indicated high capacitance of 177 F g−1 was retained after 1000 cycles.