One-dimensional vanadium nitride nanofibers fabricated by electrospinning for supercapacitors

Abstract Vanadium nitride has been the hot material for supercapacitors due to its excellent electrical conductivity and high specific capacitance. However, vanadium nitride nanoparticle usually suffers a poor performance due to its aggregation and lack of effective contact. In this work, one-dimensional (1D) vanadium nitride nanofibers are prepared by a combination of electrostatic spinning and high-temperature calcination in ammonia. The cross-linked nanofibers composed of nanoparticles construct a facile transport path for charge and electrolyte ion. Moreover, vanadium nitride nanoparticles encapsulated into carbon prevent grain growth and aggregation, which provide more active sites for electrolyte ion. Owing to this unique structure, vanadium nitride nanofibers exhibit high specific capacitance of 291.5 F g^-1 at 0.5 A g^-1 and rate capability with a capacitance of 105.1 F g^-1 at 6 A g^-1. In addition, we find that annealing temperature has significant influence on the performance of vanadium nitride, which associates with fibrous structure and crystallinity, and a limited potential window can greatly improve the cycling stability (retains 50% of initial capacitance after 1000 cycles).