Nickel oxide/carbon nanotubes nanocomposite for electrochemical capacitance

We have fabricated supercapacitor electrodes with nickel oxide (NiO)/carbon nanotubes (CNTs) nanocomposite formed by a simple chemical precipitation method. The presence of CNT network in the NiO significantly improved (i) the electrical conductivity of the host NiO by the formation of conducting network of CNTs and (ii) the active sites for the redox reaction of the metal oxide by increasing its specific surface area. This increased the specific capacitance by 34% at a percolation limit of 10 wt.% of CNTs. In addition, we also found that the power density and cycle life were improved. We will further show that the specific surface area of the composite is closely related to the specific capacitance.