Fabrication and Characterization of Supercapacitor Electrode with Amorphous Cuo/Crystalline Cu 2 O/Porous Cu Composite Based on Copper Foil Substrate

Abstract

Abstract: Copper oxides have progressively expressed themselves as one of the highly promising candidates for application in the area of energy storage devices due to its high abundance and low cost, low toxicity and variable morphology of nanoparticles. However, electrical conduction is always a problem. In this study, binder-free supercapacitor electrode of copper oxides is directly built on copper sinter network through rapid oxidation. The amorphous CuO/Cu2O/Cu layered structure is intentionally formed on copper foil for efficient charge transfer and high storage capacity. The Cu2O dominant composite electrode shows battery-like characteristic displaying its good potential in energy storage field with a high capacitance value of 1280 mF/cm2 with specific capacity of about 400C/g at a high current density. The value is the best of copper oxide type supercapacitors fabricated on copper foil as of now. Its storage mechanism and stability are also discussed. The copper foil based supercapacitor electrode is suitable for integrating with a solar cell directly. This fast and scalable fabrication method may provide a low cost solution to build up a large format electrode for energy storage application.

Keywords: CuO/Cu2O/Cu, rapid oxidation, sinter, copper foil, supercapacitor, large format electrode