High‐Performance Alkaline Battery‐Supercapacitor Hybrid Based on Bimetallic Phosphide/Phosphate

Abstract Transition metal‐based materials explored for energy storage applications viz. batteries, supercapacitors and more recently battery‐supercapacitor hybrids (BSHs) abundantly involve Co‐based materials. However, the supply chain issues and low electronic conductivity force us to look for alternative options. In this regard, Co‐free binary metal phosphide/phosphate consisting of Ni and V metal (NiVP/Pi) microspheres as the positive electrode of BSH which shows a high specific capacity of 502 C g⁻¹ (1004 F g⁻¹) at 2 mV s⁻¹ while retaining a high specific capacity of 214 C g⁻¹ (428 F g⁻¹) at 12 A g⁻¹ is reported. The high electronic conductivity of binary metal phosphide in NiVP/Pi electrode and the rich electrochemical active sites due to Ni and V metal centres results in exciting performance. More interestingly, the hybrid device is successfully developed by employing NiVP/Pi as the positive electrode and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as the negative electrode. The hybrid device (NiVP/Pi//CNT) is able to achieve a maximum energy density of 22.17 Wh kg⁻¹ and a power density of 5 kW kg⁻¹ with 91.7% capacitance retention after 7500 continuous galvanostatic charge–discharge cycles.