Facile and controllable synthesis of sea urchin-like CuCoO on Ni foam for high-performance supercapacitors.

CuCoO is considered to be an attractive electrode material for supercapacitors due to its low toxicity, high theoretical capacity and low cost. However, the low specific capacity, poor cycling performance and low intrinsic conductivity limit the further application of CuCoO. In this research, CuCoO arrays with different morphologies (rods, sea urchin-like and flakes) were synthesized on the surface of nickel foam (NF) a solvothermal method and calcination. The controllable preparation of CuCoO morphology was achieved by changing the solvent. Vertically grown sea urchin-like CuCoO has large open channels that promote rapid electron transport, and the abundance of active sites allows more electrochemical reactions to occur simultaneously. As a result, the sea urchin-like CuCoO exhibited the best electrochemical performance with a specific capacitance of 1426.2 F g at 1 A g and a capacitance retention of 96.78% after 10 000 cycles at 10 A g. In addition, an asymmetric supercapacitor with a CuCoO anode and a reduced graphene oxide (RGO) cathode was fabricated. At a power density of 802.3 W kg, the CuCoO//RGO device exhibited an energy density of 59.6 W h kg. This research provides insights into modulating the morphostructure of CuCoO to improve its electrochemical properties.