LaB₆ nanowires for supercapacitors

Supercapacitors have received considerable attention owing to high power density, high safety and great cycling performance. Great efforts have been devoted to hunting new materials for supercapacitor applications. In this work, we report a novel nanomaterial of LaB₆ nanowires (NWs) on carbon fiber cloth serving as active electrochemical materials for supercapacitors. The LaB₆-carbon fiber cloth electrodes could work in two different electrolytes including 1 M Na₂SO₄ and 1M H₂SO₄. The as-prepared LaB₆ NWs electrode delivered a significant areal capacitance as high as 17.34 mF cm⁻² in 1.0 M Na₂SO₄ solution at a current density of 0.1 mA cm⁻². Moreover, the LaB₆ NWs electrode displayed outstanding cycling stability after 10,000 charging/discharging cycles. The electrochemical charge/discharge mechanism in 1M Na₂SO₄ was studied. This work lay the foundations for developing LaB₆ NWs as supercapacitor electrode and open the door to the design of boride nanomaterials for energy storage applications.