Chirality-sorted carbon nanotube films as high capacity electrode materials.

Katarzyna Krukiewicz,Dawid Janas,Manus J. P. Biggs,Maciej Krzywiecki

doi:10.1039/c8ra03963a

Abstract

Carbon nanomaterials show great promise for a wide range of applications due to their excellent physicochemical and electrical properties. Since their discovery, the state-of-the-art has expanded the scope of their application from scientific curiosity to impactful solutions. Due to their tunability, carbon nanomaterials can be processed into a wide range of formulations and significant scope exists to couple carbon structures to electronic and electrochemical applications. In this paper, the electrochemical performance of various types of CNT films, which differ by the number of walls, diameter, chirality and surface chemistry is presented. Especially, chirality-sorted (6,5)- and (7,6)-based CNT films are shown to possess a high charge storage capacity (up to 621.91 mC cm−2), areal capacitance (262 mF cm−2), significantly increased effective surface area and advantageous charge/discharge characteristics without addition of any external species, and outperform many other high capacity materials reported in the literature. The results suggest that the control over the CNT structure can lead to the manufacture of macroscopic CNT devices precisely tailored for a wide range of applications, with the focus on energy storage devices and supercapacitors. The sorted CNT macroassemblies show great potential for energy storage technologies to come from R&D laboratories into real life.

Highlights

Carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or graphene have shown great promise for a wide range of applications due to their excellent electrical,1–3 mechanical,4–6 thermal7–9 and optical properties.10–13 Since their discovery,14,15 the state-of-the-art has matured enough to prove the concept of many nanocarbon-based devices2,16–19 and to provide practical implementation
We present on free-standing CNT lms made of various types of CNTs, which differ by the number of walls, tube diameter, chirality and surface chemistry and show that these materials possess advantageous electrochemical properties, including exceptionally high capacitance, large effective surface area and bene cial charge/discharge characteristics without addition of any external species or supporting matrices
The microstructure of the prepared CNT lms was analyzed by SEM (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

Carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or graphene have shown great promise for a wide range of applications due to their excellent electrical,1–3 mechanical,4–6 thermal7–9 and optical properties.10–13 Since their discovery,14,15 the state-of-the-art has matured enough to prove the concept of many nanocarbon-based devices2,16–19 and to provide practical implementation.

Results

Conclusion