By applying electric fields in ammonium hydroxide based solutions, shapes such as rod, flower and cube with an average grain size of 30nm to 1μm were obtained on the copper substrate.
According to the team, the results revealed that applied electric fields considerably accelerate the formation time of nanostructures from several days to one minute, with some of the desired nanostructures being obtained in one second.
The electrochemical properties of different morphologies were compared using cyclic voltammograms, charge/discharge tests and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The obtained results were said to demonstrate that the structures showed high maximum areal and specific capacitance of 42mF/cm2 and 178F/g at a scan rate of 20mV/s, which the researchers claim is larger than other reports on copper hydroxide electrodes.
The structures have potential for energy devices, such as supercapacitors and lithium ion batteries.