Abstract
Objective: An efficient and facile preparation route has been developed to prepare activated carbon (AC)/zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocomposite electrodes for the supercapacitor electrode.
Methods: The zinc oxide nanostructure was synthesized via the sol-gel method by using conventional hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) reagent as the reducing agent.
Results: The physicochemical and electrochemical properties of the nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) analysis, respectively. 10 wt% of ZnO loading shows an optimum specific capacitance of 398 F/g at a scan rate of 50 mV/s. The optimum sample retained 96% of its initial specific capacitance upon 100 consecutive cycles.
Conclusion: The enhanced specific capacitance can be ascribed to the synergistic effect of the individual properties of AC and ZnO.
Keywords: Supercapacitor, activated carbon, zinc oxide, electrochemical, energy storage, X-ray.
Graphical Abstract
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