Fabrication and characterization of biomass-derived $Co_3O_4$/carbon composite electrode for supercapacitor application

Abstract

Many research groups are focused on carbon/metal oxide composites for supercapacitor electrodes. Because the high specific capacitance is attributed to high specific surface area, porous structures of carbon and redox reactions of metal oxide with electrolyte ions. To fabricate porous carbon materials, template method has been researched such as soft template and hard template. On the other hand, template-free method has been possible for porous carbon using the natural properties of biomass-derived carbon. Furthermore, $Co_3O_4$ has been researched in many groups because of its high specific capacitance. According to the template-free method, we fabricated mesoporous carbon based on amylose in lamellar structures of corn starch. This product was hybridized with $Co_3O_4$ by simple hydrothermal method. Composite materials were analyzed through mostly electrochemical characterization. We anticipate that our research of the $MCSC/Co_3O_4$ electrode will be contributed to not only supercapacior electrode but energy storage system such as catalyst and battery electrode.