Vanadium based materials as electrode materials for high performance supercapacitors

As a kind of supercapacitors, pseudocapacitors have attracted wide attention in recent years. The capacitance of the electrochemical capacitors based on pseudocapacitance arises mainly from redox reactions between electrolytes and active materials. These materials usually have several oxidation states for oxidation and reduction. Many research teams have focused on the development of an alternative material for electrochemical capacitors. Many transition metal oxides have been shown to be suitable as electrode materials of electrochemical capacitors. Among them, vanadium based materials are being developed for this purpose. Vanadium based materials are known as one of the best active materials for high power/energy density electrochemical capacitors due to its outstanding specific capacitance and long cycle life, high conductivity and good electrochemical reversibility. There are different kinds of synthetic methods such as sol-gel hydrothermal/solvothermal method, template method, electrospinning method, atomic layer deposition, and electrodeposition method that have been successfully applied to prepare vanadium based electrode materials. In our review, we give an overall summary and evaluation of the recent progress in the research of vanadium based materials for electrochemical capacitors that include synthesis methods, the electrochemical performances of the electrode materials and the devices.