Synthesis of VS2/N-rGO nanocomposite material for energy storage application

Abstract

Vanadium disulfide (VS2), which belongs to transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) group, is a prominent material for energy storage application. On the other hand, graphene like carbon-based nanomaterials offer improved electrochemical performance due to high specific surface area, excellent conductivity, good chemical, and mechanical stability. Therefore, composite of graphene like material with TMD have shown better electrochemical performance till date. In this work, we have synthesized VS2/N-rGO composite material, which can be applicable for energy storage device. At first, we have synthesized graphene oxide (GO) using Tour method. Then we reduced GO along with nitrogen doping using hydrothermal route. After that, we have synthesized VS2/N-rGO by hydrothermal method. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectrum of GO shows a prominent peak at 10.2°, which implies the interlayer spacing in GO of 8.7 Å. After reduction and doping with nitrogen (N), two peaks are obtained at 24.7° (d = 3.6 Å), and 42.3° (d = 2.1 Å) in the XRD pattern which corresponds to N-rGO. RAMAN spectrum of composite shows the characteristics peaks of VS2 at 141.6, 194.5, 286.4, 404.1, 680.1 and 997.2 cm-1 along with D and G bands coming from the N-rGO. We have also performed the Fourier-transform infrared-spectroscopy (FTIR) and Field-emission gun-scanning electron-microscopy (FEG-SEM) characterizations to investigate the bonding vibration and surface morphology of the materials. The synthesized material is suitable for energy storage applications.