Microwave-assisted synthesis of metal oxide/hydroxide composite electrodes for high power supercapacitors - A review

Electrochemical capacitors (ECs), also known as pseudocapacitors or supercapacitors (SCs), is receiving great attention for its potential applications in electric and hybrid electric vehicles because of their ability to store energy, alongside with the advantage of delivering the stored energy much more rapidly than batteries, namely power density. To become primary devices for power supply, supercapacitors must be developed further to improve their ability to deliver high energy and power simultaneously. In this concern, a lot of effort is devoted to the investigation of pseudocapacitive transition-metal-based oxides/hydroxides such as ruthenium oxide, manganese oxide, cobalt oxide, nickel oxide, cobalt hydroxide, nickel hydroxide, and mixed metal oxides/hydroxides such as nickel cobaltite and nickel-cobalt oxyhydroxides. This is mainly due to the fact that they can produce much higher specific capacitances than typical carbon-based electric double-layer capacitors and electronically conducting polymers. This review presents supercapacitor performance data of metal oxide thin film electrodes by microwaveassisted as an inexpensive, quick and versatile technique. Supercapacitors have established the specific capacitance (Cs) principles, therefore, it is likely that metal oxide films will continue to play a major role in supercapacitor technology and are expected to considerably increase the capabilities of these devices in near future. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.