Long Cyclic Life in Manganese Oxide-Based Electrodes

Long cyclic life is very important to the practical application of the pseudocapacitors. A systematic study has been carried out to reveal what key factors and how they affecting the cycling behaviors of manganese oxides. The specific capacitance degradation of MnOx is usually attributed to the so-called "dissolution" issue. Our results indicate that "dissoluted MnOx" is in the form of the "flotsam" derived from the detached active materials instead of Mn(2+) in the solution, which causes color change of electrolyte and the loss of specific capacitance. During the cycling, the morphology of manganese oxides transformed to flower-like flakes regardless of the starting structures. After that, it tends to form nanowires especially at elevated temperatures. According to the relative low electrochemical utility of nanowires, specific capacitance might decrease at this stage. These results put forward new questions on charge storage mechanism. Besides, electrochemical oxidation of MnOx leads to an increase in specific capacitance. The cycling behavior of MnOx is mainly determined by these three factors. Excitingly, a very stable cycling performance with no capacitance degradation over 40 000 cycles has been achieved in MnO2 hierarchical sphere-based electrodes. This study provides insightful understanding of the fundamental cycling behavior of MnOx-based electrodes and useful instructions for developing highly stable supercapacitors.