Electric Field Enhanced Synthesis of Copper Hydroxide Nanostructures for Supercapacitor Application

Abstract

Electric field enhanced approach has been used to synthesize different copper hydroxide morphologies as high-performance supercapacitors electrode materials. Employing this efficient, simple and low cost method, various shapes such as rod, flower and cube with an average grain size of 30[Formula: see text]nm to 1[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m were obtained on the copper substrate. The results revealed that applied electric field considerably accelerates the formation time of nanostructures from several days to close to 1[Formula: see text]min, where some of the desired nanostructures were obtained even in 1[Formula: see text]s. The electrochemical properties of different morphologies were compared using cyclic voltammograms and charge/discharge tests and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The obtained results demonstrated that the two types of fabricated structures showed high maximum areal and specific capacitance of 42[Formula: see text]mF/cm2 and 178[Formula: see text]F/g at scan rate of 20[Formula: see text]mVs[Formula: see text], respectively, which make them excellent and promising electrode materials for supercapacitors.