Surfactant determines the morphology, structure and energy storage features of CuO nanostructures

In quest for cost-affordable but high performing supercapacitor (SC), we explored fabrication of electrode material of copper oxide (CuO) nanostructures using simple solution-based synthesis procedure and different surfactants. Here, we report the influence of the surfactants on the morphological and structural evolutions as well as energy-storage capacity of the CuO. As an SC electrode material, CuO exhibits considerably high specific capacity (51 mAhg(-1) @ 1Ag(-1)), good rate performance (31 mAhg(-1) @ 10Ag(-1)) and better cyclic stability. In addition, it has low charge transfer resistance (1.6 O), which is very important when performing charge-discharge at high current rates. These results are highlighting the way for its use in design of advanced CuObased supercapacitor devices.