Amonia plasma functionalization of carbon nanotubes for supercapacitor applications

Abstract

The modification of the surface of carbon nanotubes grown by plasma enchanced chemical vapour deposition with a plasma treatment allows the alteration of their supercapacitor properties. The modified nanotubes show a noteworthy increase in their specific capacitance from 4.2 mF up to 8.2 mF using cyclic voltammetry at a scan rate of 50 mV s−1 in a Na2SO4 solution. Furthermore, the increased capacitance of the nanotubes was also studied in galvanostatic chargedischarge experiments, which showed a capacity increment from 1.9 mF up to 3.2 mF.