High electrochemical energy-storage performance promoted by SnSe nanorods anchored on rGO nanosheets

[Display omitted] •SnSe nanorods were synthesized using a facile one-step solvothermal method.•SnSe nanorods were successfully anchored by the rGO sheets.•SnSe/rGO electrode showed higher electrochemical performance than SnSe electrode.•High Es of 30.5 Wh kg−1 and Ps of 1 kW kg−1 were obtained for the hybrid device. There have been few studies on tin selenide (SnSe) as a supercapacitor electrode. In this paper, SnSe nanorods were obtained via a simple, solvothermal, one-step method, then its modification by reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was studied. SnSe/rGO composites with different rGO ratios were prepared and the electrochemical measurements showed that the best electrochemical performance among them was SnSe/7rGO which showed a good electrochemical efficiency exhibiting a capacitance of 568 F g−1 at 1 A g−1. A hybrid supercapacitor device was prepared using SnSe/7rGO as a positive electrode and activated carbon as a negative electrode to further investigate the electrochemical efficiency of this material. The produced device exhibited a specific energy of 30.5 Wh kg−1 at a specific power of 1.007 kW kg−1 and still maintained 4 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 1.24 kW kg−1. The obtained results suggesting that the as-synthesized electrode has great potential in applications of supercapacitors.