Manganese oxide (MnO2) is frequently combined with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to improve supercapacitor performance, yet high-rate properties are often limited by the electronic resistance or the ionic diffusion resistance of the composite electrode. Here, we present a facile pulsed current electrodeposition (PCE) of MnO2 on vertically-aligned CNTs (VACNTs), which leads to improved coating quality over conventional methods such as chemical etching or direct current electrodeposition (DCE) (Figure 1). The improvement contributes to a clear enhancement in gravimetric specific capacitance, reaching a state-of-the-art value of 243.3 F/g at a high scanning rate of 100 mV/s. Thanks to the extremely low resistances of the structure, the VACNTs/MnO2 electrode further demonstrates outstanding versatility and lifetime stability.

Improved high-rate performance of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes/manganese oxide supercapacitor electrode by pulsed current electrodeposition method

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.