Co-precipitation synthesized lanthanum doped copper oxide nanoparticles for supercapacitor applications

Supercapacitors with metal oxide as electrode material has gained overwhelming response due to their high dependability, peculiar characteristics of producing various versatile morphologies with synergistic effect and facile design. Undoped and lanthanum doped CuO nanoparticles were synthesized by simple chemical co-precipitation technique for supercapacitor electrodes. The structural and morphological studies revealed the formation of a stable monoclinic structured CuO of crystallite size 15 – 17 nm, even as the rare earth dopant is added and nanoparticles with sheet like morphology of size ranging 40 – 120 nm. The FT – IR confirmed the fingerprint vibration modes present in the system and the dielectric analysis portrayed the temperature dependant constant and loss factor suggesting a high electropositive nature of the lanthanum ions on the grain boundaries. The electrochemical characterization was performed using cyclic voltammetry in 1M Na2SO4 aqueous electrolyte. The fabricated CuO and Cu0.99La0.01O electrode exhibited a maximum efficiency of 39 Fg-1 and 48 Fg-1 for a scan rate of 5 mV/s respectively.