Surface Treatment of Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes for Increasing Electric Double-layer Capacitance

In this work, the electrochemical properties of surface treated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) were studied. Nitrogen and oxygen functional groups of the MWNTs were introduced by urea and acidic treatment, respectively. The surface functional groups of the MWNTs were confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements and zeta-potential method. The characteristics of N-2 adsorption isotherm at 77 K, specific surface area, and total pore volumes were investigated by BET eqaution, BJH method and t-plot method. Electrochemical properties of the functionalized MWNTs were accumulated by cyclic voltammetry at the scan rates of 50 mVs(-1) and 100 mVs(-1) in 1 M H2SO4 as electrolytes. As a result, the functionalized MWNTs led to an increase of capacitance as compared with pristine MWNTs. It was found that the increase of capacitance for urea treated MWNTs was attributed to the increase in density of surface functional groups, resulting in improving the wettability between electrode materials and charge species.