Shock wave recovery experiments on α-V2O5 nano-crystalline materials: A potential material for energy storage applications

Most of the functional materials fail to maintain their crystallographic sustainability at high-temperature and high-pressure conditions so that identifying materials of high stability in such atmosphere is essential for the actual requirement of the practical applications. In this framework, the shock wave recovery experiments have been performed on α -V2O5 to assess its crystallographic, electronic and magnetic phase stabilities with respect to the number of shock pulses such as 0, 50, 100 and 150 such that the results of phase stability have been evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Vibrational spectroscopy (Raman), optical spectroscopy (UV-DRS) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The observed shocked sample's diffraction and spectroscopic results clearly demonstrate the formation of defective crystal structures with massive oxygen vacancies. Remarkably, the orange sample is turned into yellow while increasing the number of shock pulses. FE-SEM images show the significant changes in the surface morphology, particularly at 150 shocked conditions. In addition to that, the electrochemical analysis has been performed to extract the role on surface morphological changes and oxygen vacancies in the electrochemical properties such as electrical resistance and specific capacitance such that we find a rapid enhancement of specific capacitance at 150 shocked conditions than that of the control and other shocked conditions. Hence, we could suggest that shocked-V2O5 NPs can be effectively used for energy storage applications. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.