In situ Fe3O4 loaded sonochemically functionalized multi-walled CNTs and RGO based composites as electrode materials for supercapacitors

In this work, reduced Graphene oxide (RGO) and in situ magnetite (Fe3O4) coated functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) based binary and ternary nanocomposites were synthesized and characterized by using XRD, Raman, FTIR, TGA, TEM analyses and electrochemically tested for supercapacitor application. The MWCNTs-COOH-Fe3O4 nanocomposite showed a specific capacitance of 167.29 Fg-1 at 10 mVs-1, energy density of 41.65 Whkg-1 at power density of 1333 Wkg-1. The cyclic stability of MWCNTs-COOH-Fe3O4 was 69% up to 2000 cycles. While, RGO-MWCNTs-COOH-Fe3O4 nanocomposite exhibited a specific capacitance of 448.10 Fg-1 at 10 mVs-1, energy density of 134.02 Whkg-1 at power density 1282 Wkg-1 and 93% cyclic stability after 2000 cycles. These results revealed that the RGO mixed nanocomposite show better electrochemical properties. The impact of different scan rates and current densities on specific capacitance (Csp) values were studied on each constituent of the composite as well as on the final composite material.