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    Niobium carbide nanofibers as a versatile precursor for high power supercapacitor and high energy battery electrodes
    (London [u.a.] : RSC, 2016) Tolosa, Aura; Krüner, Benjamin; Fleischmann, Simon; Jäckel, Nicolas; Zeiger, Marco; Aslan, Mesut; Grobelsek, Ingrid; Presser, Volker
    This study presents electrospun niobium carbide/carbon (NbC/C) hybrid nanofibers, with an average diameter of 69 ± 30 nm, as a facile precursor to derive either highly nanoporous niobium carbide-derived carbon (NbC–CDC) fibers for supercapacitor applications or niobium pentoxide/carbon (Nb2O5/C) hybrid fibers for battery-like energy storage. In all cases, the electrodes consist of binder-free and free-standing nanofiber mats that can be used without further conductive additives. Chlorine gas treatment conformally transforms NbC nanofiber mats into NbC–CDC fibers with a specific surface area of 1508 m2 g−1. These nanofibers show a maximum specific energy of 19.5 W h kg−1 at low power and 7.6 W h kg−1 at a high specific power of 30 kW kg−1 in an organic electrolyte. CO2 treatment transforms NbC into T-Nb2O5/C hybrid nanofiber mats that provide a maximum capacity of 156 mA h g−1. The presence of graphitic carbon in the hybrid nanofibers enabled high power handling, maintaining 50% of the initial energy storage capacity at a high rate of 10 A g−1 (64 C-rate). When benchmarked for an asymmetric full-cell, a maximum specific energy of 86 W h kg−1 was obtained. The high specific power for both systems, NbC–CDC and T-Nb2O5/C, resulted from the excellent charge propagation in the continuous nanofiber network and the high graphitization of the carbon structure.
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    Vanadium pentoxide/carbide-derived carbon core-shell hybrid particles for high performance electrochemical energy storage
    (London [u.a.] : RSC, 2016) Zeiger, Marco; Ariyanto, Teguh; Krüner, Benjamin; Peter, Nicolas J.; Fleischmann, Simon; Etzold, Bastian J.M.; Presser, Volker
    A novel, two step synthesis is presented combining the formation of carbide-derived carbon (CDC) and redox-active vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) in a core–shell manner using solely vanadium carbide (VC) as the precursor. In a first step, the outer part of VC particles is transformed to nanoporous CDC owing to the in situ formation of chlorine gas from NiCl2 at 700 °C. In a second step, the remaining VC core is calcined in synthetic air to obtain V2O5/CDC core–shell particles. Materials characterization by means of electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction clearly demonstrates the partial transformation from VC to CDC, as well as the successive oxidation to V2O5/CDC core–shell particles. Electrochemical performance was tested in organic 1 M LiClO4 in acetonitrile using half- and asymmetric full-cell configuration. High specific capacities of 420 mA h g−1 (normalized to V2O5) and 310 mA h g−1 (normalized to V2O5/CDC) were achieved. The unique nanotextured core–shell architecture enables high power retention with ultrafast charging and discharging, achieving more than 100 mA h g−1 at 5 A g−1 (rate of 12C). Asymmetric cell design with CDC on the positive polarization side leads to a high specific energy of up to 80 W h kg−1 with a superior retention of more than 80% over 10 000 cycles and an overall energy efficiency of up to 80% at low rates.