Ultra-dispersed nickel–cobalt sulfides on reduced graphene oxide with improved power and cycling performances for nickel-zinc batteries

Rechargeable alkaline nickel-zinc (Ni-Zn) batteries are attracting increased attention owing to their exceptional inherent safety and high specific capacity. Unfortunately, the limited power and cycling performances of these Ni-Zn batteries are still challenging. Herein, bimetal nickel-cobalt sulfide/ reduced graphene oxide (NiCo-S/RGO) composites with tunable compositions are synthesized by rational designing precursor and subsequent sulfidation treatment. NiCo-S is evenly anchored on RGO surface, resulting in increased number of electrochemical active sites, accelerated electrolyte ion diffusion, and enhanced electrical conductivity. Particularly, by tuning the Ni and Co composition ratios in NiCo-S, NiCo-S/RGO with a Ni to Co ratio of 2:1 (NiCo-S-2/RGO) shows a specific capacity of 145.7 mA h g-1 at 1 A g-1 and long-life cycling retention of 84.7% after 1000 cycles, and the above performances are superior than the controlled samples with other Ni to Co ratios. Furthermore, the as-assembled alkaline zinc batteries of NiCo-S-2/RGO//Zn deliver an impressive specific energy of 333.2 W h kg-1, showing great potential in practical applications. This experiment hopefully provides new idea for construction of high-performance electrodes of aqueous rechargeable batteries.