Facile Growth Of Carbon Nanaotube Electrode From Electroplated Ni Catalyst For Supercapacitor

A facile growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was facilitated by the use of direct-current plating technique for catalyst preparation. Ni nanoparticles (NPs) were deposited on Cu foil at different applied voltages of 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 V. The Ni-deposited foil was subsequently used as catalyst for CNTs synthesis by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) method. CVD was carried out at 800 ºC using ethanol as carbon source. A voltage of 1.5 V was the optimum condition to deposit uniform Ni NPs that had a narrow size distribution of 55±3 nm, which in turn, yielded synthesized CNTs with a uniform diameter of approximately 60±5 nm with graphitic layers parallel to the CNTs axis. On the other hand, electroplated Ni at 1.0 V produced CNTs with graphitic layers at an angle to the CNTs axis, while electroplated Ni at 2.0 V produced curly CNTs with a wide distribution of diameters. These results show that Ni NPs size distribution could be controlled by electroplated voltage. Our observation was that Ni NPs