A Facile Method for the Preparation of α-Fe2O3/Reduced Graphene Oxides Nanocomposites as Electrode Materials for High Performance Supercapacitors

In this work, a low-cost, fast, and environmental friendly microwave assisted chemical route to prepare hematite iron oxide ( α -Fe 2 O 3 ) nanoparticles/reduced graphene oxides (RGO) nanocomposites and their potential use as electrodes for the supercapacitors was presented. The x-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, FESEM and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) studies confirmed that the prepared nanostructures have pure rhombohedral symmetry of Fe 2 O 3 with hematite phase and high crystallinity. Morphological features obtained from Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses showed that the α -Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles possessed spherical shaped particles with size ranging from 10–20 nm, and the nanoparticles of α -Fe 2 O 3 were found to be anchored on the surface of RGO sheets. Electrochemical studies were carried out using α -Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles and α -Fe 2 O 3 /RGO nanocomposites electrodes and their performances were compared. It was observed that that α -Fe 2 O 3 /RGO nanocomposites electrodes displayed higher specific capacitance of 356 F g −1 measured at a scan rate of 50 mV s −1 , while, α -Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles showed a specific capacitance of 123 F g −1 at a similar scan rate. Furthermore, α -Fe 2 O 3 /RGO nanocomposites exhibited excellent cyclic stability for 2500 cycles measured at a scan rate of 50 mV s −1 with ~92% capacitance retention. The presented approach is promising for the mass production of high performance electrodes applied in energy storage device.