Nanostructured Manganese Oxides in Supercapacitors

Abstract

The fundamental properties of supercapacitors such as basic understanding of calculations for symmetric and asymmetric systems and the effect of electrolytes are described. Manganese oxides such as MnO2 exhibited a great potential in the field of energy storage due to their structural as well as electrochemical properties, thus attracting much attention to several researchers in the past and recent years. The major contributor on the manganese oxide properties is their capability to reach relatively high pseudocapacitances, with values competing with the ones obtained from the RuO2, resulting from their multiple valence state changes. The developments of the MnO2-based materials and its derivatives (i.e. MnxOy) are being explored from the synthetic point of view as well as their emerging applications as energy storage materials from the previous years up to the current times. The need for further exploration of manganese oxide-based electrodes is motivated by their considerably low cost and more environmentally friendly as compared to other transition metals such as RuO2 and IrO2. This chapter briefly accounts the uses of nanostructured manganese oxide materials for application as supercapacitors while also summarising the respective synthesis of MnO2 and MnxOy materials such as Mn3O4 and Mn2O3 for the development of an improved electrochemical stability of supercapacitor device.