Trisodium Citrate as a Double-Edged Sword: Selective Etching Prussian Blue Analog Nanocubes into Orthogonal Frustums and Their Derivatives for Supercapacitors.

ABSTRACT

The construction of novel structured Prussian blue analogs (PBAs) by chemical etching has attracted the most attention to PBA derivatives with outstanding performance. In this work, the unprecedented PBA orthogonal frustums are first prepared from nanocubes through a selective chemical etching approach using trisodium citrate as an etchant. The citrate ions can chelate with nickel species from the edges/corners of NiCo-PBA nanocubes and then disintegrate NiCo-PBAs resulting in the generation of NiCo-PBA orthogonal frustums. The derived CoNi2S4/Co0.91S composites still inherit the original orthogonal frustum structure and possess outstanding supercapacitor performance. This study develops a popularized method to construct novel structured PBAs and brings inspiration for designing PBA-based electrodes with advanced electrochemical performance.