Facile one-step mechanochemical synthesis of [Cu(tu)]Cl·1/2H2O nanobelts for high-performance supercapacitor

Abstract

A facile one-step mechanochemical process from CuCl₂·2H₂O and thiourea (tu) to fabricate novel [Cu(tu)]Cl·1/2H₂O nanobelts has been observed for the first time, and the nanobelts were used as an electrode material for a supercapacitor. The [Cu(tu)]Cl·1/2H₂O nanobelts with staggered arrangement have lengths longer than 10 μm, and exactly straight nanobelts are 300 nm in width, and the extreme ends of nanobelts are around 30–50 nm in width. The specific capacitance of the [Cu(tu)]Cl·1/2H₂O nanobelts was up to 1145 F g⁻¹ at scan rate of 5 mV s⁻¹ and 922 F g⁻¹ at current density of 10 A g⁻¹ in a 2 M KOH electrolyte. Simultaneously, the retention was maintained at 72.4% after 500 cycles at 10 A g⁻¹. The corresponding equivalent circuit for the [Cu(tu)]Cl·1/2H₂O was also discussed. This study provides a facile, green, and large-scale method to fabricate novel nano-complexes with high supercapacitor activity.