Sonication-Assisted Synthesis of Molybdenum Disulfide Aerogel for the Electrode Materials of Supercapacitors

Abstract

The sonication processing was added in front of the freeze-drying as an intermediate processing before the molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) aerogel was synthesized. It is distinguishing with the traditional hydrothermal reaction to combine the sonication processing and freeze-drying in our method. The structure, morphology, specific surface area and pore size distribution were characterized, and the electrochemical performances were measured in 0.5[Formula: see text]M Na 2 SO 4 electrolyte for the MoS 2 aerogel and flower-like MoS 2 . As for comparison, they are of porous structure and microsphere structure, and their specific surface areas are 55.14[Formula: see text]m 2 [Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text] and 38.12[Formula: see text]m 2 [Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text]. The specific capacitances are 166.7[Formula: see text]F[Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text] and 119.2[Formula: see text]F[Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text] at the scan rate of 5[Formula: see text]mV[Formula: see text]s[Formula: see text], and the capacity retentions are 87.7% and 81.6% after 3000 charge/discharge cycles. For the enhanced mechanism, the high specific surface of the MoS 2 aerogel causes high specific capacitance, and the unique porous structure could buffer volume expansion to improve retention ability during charge/discharge processes. The MoS 2 aerogel may thus be a promising electrode material for supercapacitors.