One-step hydrothermal synthesis of hierarchical MnO2-coated CuO flower-like nanostructures with enhanced electrochemical properties for supercapacitor

We developed a one-step hydrothermal approach to fabricate hierarchical MnO2 nanosheets on flower-like CuO nanostructures without any surfactant. With this method, the ultrathin MnO2 nanosheets conformably and uniformly grew around every nanopetal of flower-like CuO. Furthermore, the electrochemical properties of the MnO2/CuO nanocomposite electrodes were elucidated by cyclic voltammograms, galvanostatic charge/discharge tests and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in 1 M Na2SO4 electrolyte. The electrochemical results demonstrated that this unique MnO2/CuO nanostructure exhibited a specific capacitance of 167.2 F g−1 and excellent cycling stability (88.6% retention after 5000 cycles). Indeed, these remarkable findings will enable low-cost MnO2/CuO nanocomposite attractive for high-performance supercapacitors.