Olive Oil Lampblack for Supercapacitor Electrodes

Abstract

In this study, we prepared and characterized lampblack of olive oil for application in supercapacitors. The lampblack was prepared by the simple technique of flame-soot method. The lampblack samples characterized by using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), N₂ adsorption-desorption isotherms, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) revealed that they contain mostly amorphous nanosized carbon particles with oxygenated functional groups and the carbon content in the lampblack was 92.6%. The surface area of the lampblack carbon calculated from the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method was found to be about 302.7 m²g^-1 with an average pore size of 1.69 nm obtained from the Density Functional Theory (DFT) analysis. Lampblack carbon samples were used to prepare supercapacitor electrodes. Electrochemical properties of the electrodes were investigated in 6M aqueous KOH by Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), Galvanostatic Charge Discharge (GCD), and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. The specific capacitance of the electrode obtained from the GCD test was 70.36 Fg^-1 at the current density of 1 Ag^-1 with a low Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) value of 0.81 Ω.