Design and synthesis of carbon nanotubes/carbon fiber/reduced graphene oxide/MnO2 flexible electrode material for supercapacitors

Abstract

We present an easy method to use the carbon nanotubes (CNT)/carbon fiber (CF) membrane as a collector to load reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/MnO2 nanocomposites. The CNT/CF has a good flexibility and mechanical strength with the good pliable, mechanical strength and large porosity. RGO can provide high surface area for the deposition of MnO2, also as an effective dispersant and adhesive for MnO2, which can improve the connection effect among CNT/CF and MnO2 particles. The highly porous MnO2 nanospheres have provided high specific capacitance for the CNT/CF/RGO/MnO2 (CCRM) composite. The flexible CCRM composite film with excellent structural and electrochemical performance was obtained. Under the current density of 0.5 A/g, the CCRM flexible electrode has exhibited high specific capacitance of 356 F/g, the CCRM has showed good overall specific capacitance of 30.28 F/g (the areal capacitance is 131.72 F/cm) and excellent cycle performance, after 1000 cycles the specific capacitance has no obvious attenuation.