Polyvinylpyrrolidone-assisted Solvothermal Synthesis of Porous LaCoO3 Nanospheres as Supercapacitor Electrode

Abstract

A polyvinylpyrrolidone (1-ethenylpyrrolidin-2-one or PVP)-assisted solvothermal method has been developed to synthesize porous LaCoO 3 nanospheres. Appropriate PVP addition may effectively prohibit the growth of nanospheres and plays an important role in reducing the size of LaCoO 3 . The porous morphology of LaCoO 3 nanospheres can be obtained by an annealing process to achieve a specific capacitance of 203 F g -1 at a current density of 1 A g -1 with good cyclic stability for LaCoO 3 which has been prepared with 0.5 g PVP. This attributes to the synergistic effect of both size reduction and porous morphology.