Nitrides for Supercapacitor Applications

The need for a more sustainable solution to the energy needs of the world has been felt and is driving various new technologies including lithium ion batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells. Supercapacitors hold a unique place among these energy storage devices on account of their high power densities and long cycleability.

Nanocrystalline Vanadium nitride (VN) has been shown to be a promising supercapacitor material with capacitances as high as 1300 F/g. The capacitance however drops in a few cycles. In this work, we show that doping VN with various other transition metals leads to considerable increase in stability. This improvement in performance has been shown at various scan rates and various loadings.