Substrate Dependent Self-Organization of Mesoporous Cobalt Oxide Nanowires with Remarkable Pseudocapacitance

A scheme of current collector dependent self-organization of mesoporous cobalt oxide nanowires has been used to create unique supercapacitor electrodes, with each nanowire making direct contact with the current collector. The fabricated electrodes offer the desired properties of macroporosity to allow facile electrolyte flow, thereby reducing device resistance and nanoporosity with large surface area to allow faster reaction kinetics. Co3O4 nanowires grown on carbon fiber paper collectors self-organize into a brush-like morphology with the nanowires completely surrounding the carbon microfiber cores. In comparison, Co3O4 nanowires grown on planar graphitized carbon paper collectors self-organize into a flower-like morphology. In three electrode configuration, brush-like and flower-like morphologies exhibited specific capacitance values of 1525 and 1199 F/g, respectively, at a constant current density of 1 A/g. In two electrode configuration, the brush-like nanowire morphology resulted in a superior supercapacitor performance with high specific capacitances of 911 F/g at 0.25 A/g and 784 F/g at 40 A/g. In comparison, the flower-like morphology exhibited lower specific capacitance values of 620 F/g at 0.25 A/g and 423 F/g at 40 A/g. The Co3O4 nanowires with brush-like morphology exhibited high values of specific power (71 kW/kg) and specific energy (81 Wh/kg). Maximum energy and power densities calculated for Co3O4 nanowires with flower-like morphology were 55 Wh/kg and 37 kW/kg respectively. Both electrode designs exhibited excellent cycling stability by retaining similar to 91-94% of their maximum capacitance after 5000 cycles of continuous charge-discharge.