Sol-gel synthesized carbon nanoparticles as supercapacitor electrodes with ultralong cycling stability

Recently, high-performance energy storage devices are urgently needed due to the rapid development of miniaturized, portable and high performance electronic equipment. In this work, we present a facile sol-gel technique followed by electrochemical deposition for synthesizing carbon nanoparticles electrode that exhibits the potential to be used as both positive as well as negative supercapacitor material. The technique used here for the synthesis of carbon nanoparticles electrode results in pseudocapacitive behavior instead of typical EDLC. Further, the synthesized carbon nanoparticles electrode exhibits specific capacitance of 73.75 F/g at 0.001 A in potential range of -0.4 to 0.4 V along with excellent cyclic stability even after 9000 GCD cycles. In the positive potential window i.e., from 0 to 0.4 V, the synthesized CNPs electrode exhibits good specific capacitance value of 177.75 F/g at 0.001 A whereas in the negative potential window i.e., from -0.6 to 0 V, it shows specific capacitance of 88 F/g at 0.001 A. These results indicate that the synthesized carbon nanoparticles electrode is a promising material for supercapacitor applications.

Automated summary

This study introduces a simple method for synthesizing carbon nanoparticles electrode with pseudocapacitive behavior instead of typical EDLC, showing good specific capacitance and cyclic stability, making it suitable for supercapacitor applications.