Study and optimisation of manganese oxide-based electrodes for electrochemical supercapacitors

A manganese oxide material was synthesised by an easy precipitation method based on reduction of potassium permanganate(VII) with a manganese(II) salt. The material was treated at different temperatures to study the effect of thermal treatment on capacitive property. The best capacitive performance was obtained with the material treated at 200 °C. This material was used to prepare electrodes with different amounts of polymer binder, carbon black and graphite fibres to individuate the optimal composition that gave the best electrochemical performances. It was found that graphite fibres improve the electrochemical performance of electrodes. The highest specific capacitance (267 F g⁻¹ MnO_x) was obtained with an electrode containing 70% of MnO_x, 15% of carbon black, 10% of graphite fibres and 5% of PVDF. This electrode, with CB/GF ratio of 1.5, showed a higher utilization of manganese oxide. The results reported in the present paper further confirmed that manganese oxide is a very interesting material for supercapacitor application.