Study on structural and enhancement of current in activated carbon by incorporating multiwalled carbon nanotube as binary nanocomposites

Abstract

Supercapacitor (SC) also called ultracapacitor is an electrochemical energy storage device applied to store electrical charges and pulse power supply. It is expected that both energy and power density could be improved by making the SC composite structure using highly conducting materials multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in activated carbon (AC). Also the performance of SC depends on some major factors of its electrode materials like high electrical conductivity, good mesoporocity, high specific surface area etc., so the structural and electrical study of MWCNTs incorporated in host activated carbon (AC) that forms nanocomposite prepared by a simple, low cost and environment friendly method has been reported. The structural properties of AC, MWCNTs and AC/MWCNTs have been examined by XRD, SEM and Raman spectroscopy. The enhancement of current in AC by adding MWCNTs has been analysed by current(I)-voltage(v) measurements. The observed results suggest that the prepared composite could be used for supercapacitor application.