Copper Oxide Synthesis on Cu Foam by Chemical Bath Deposition with Surfactant for Supercapacitor

Abstract

Nanostructured CuO has been synthesized by surfactant-assisted chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The copper foam has been used as conductive substrate for CuO deposition, which can be used as binder-free electrode for supercapacitor. Due to the addition of organic surfactant Triton X-100, there is tremendous change in structure, morphology, surface area and electrochemical property of copper oxide. The nanostructured CuO was characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FTIR). Electrochemical performance was evaluated through cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge-discharge techniques. The XRD peaks showed that monoclinic CuO formed. The SEM images revealed the formation of flower-like structure by connecting many nanosheets together by addition of Triton X-100. The FTIR graph confirms the formation of CuO. The binder-free electrode developed using this nanopetals flower-like CuO exhibits high specific capacitance of 150 F/g at scan rate 5 mV/s, and excellent power performance and cycling stability. This study revealed that morphology plays an important role in supercapacitor.