Abstract
Mesoporous carbon electrodes have been decorated with different contents of Cu/Cu2O nanoparticles via post-synthetic approach and successfully used for supercapacitor application. The N2 adsorption results reveal that all the functionalized materials exhibit a well-ordered mesoporous structure with excellent textural characteristics whereas the XRD results demonstrate that the structure of the mesoporous carbon support is retained even after the functionalization process. The HRSEM and HRTEM images display that the copper oxides are highly dispersed along the nanochannels of the mesoporous carbon support which are critical for the supercapacitor application. The electrochemical performance of Cu/Cu2O nanoparticles functionalized mesoporous carbon with tunable etc. pore structures is investigated by cyclic voltammetry, charge/discharge test and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Interestingly, as the pore diameter of the support increases, electrochemical performance is also increased and a maximum specific capacitance of 380 F g -1 at a current density of 1 mA cm-2 is achieved for CMK-3-150 loaded with 20 wt% of the Cu/Cu2O nanoparticles. The excellent electrochemical performance of the functionalized mesoporous carbon electrodes are attributed to the combined effect of electrical double layer and pseudo capacitance generated by the support with excellent textural parameters and the Cu/Cu2O nanoparticles, respectively. Crown
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 77-86 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Microporous and Mesoporous Materials |
Volume | 172 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2013 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The work was partially financed by MEXT , Japan, and AIBN , Australia. One of the authors Prof. Ajayan Vinu thanks ARC for the award of the Future Fellowship and AIBN for the start-up grant. Kumaresa P.S. Prasad thanks AIBN for the award of internship and Mr. S. Varghese for the stimulating research discussion while writing the manuscript.
Keywords
- Copper oxide
- Mesoporous carbon
- Physico-chemical properties
- Supercapacitor