Facile Synthesis of Flowerlike LiFe₅O₈ Microspheres for Electrochemical Supercapacitors

Abstract

Facile synthesis of porous and hollow\nspinel materials is very urgent due to their extensive applications\nin the field of energy storage. In present work, flowerlike porous\nLiFe₅O₈ microspheres etched for 15, 30, and\n45 min (named as p-LFO-15, p-LFO-30, and p-LFO-45, respectively) are\nsuccessfully synthesized through a facile chemical etching method\nbased on bulk LiFe₅O₈ (LFO) particles as precursors,\nand they are applied as electrode materials for high-performance electrochemical\ncapacitors. In particular, the specific surface area of p-LFO-45 reaches\n46.13 m² g^–1, which is 112 times greater\nthan that of the unetched counterpart. Therefore, the p-LFO-45 electrode\ncan achieve a higher capacitance of 278 F g^–1 at\na scan rate of 5 mV s^–1 than the unetched counterpart.\nFurthermore, the p-LFO-45 electrode presents a good cycling stability\nwith 78.3% of capacitive retention after 2000 cycles, which is much\nhigher than that of the unetched LFO particles (66%). Therefore, the\nflowerlike porous LFO microspheres are very promising candidate materials\nfor supercapacitor applications.