Abstract
Interest in pseudocapacitive materials, especially cuprous oxide, has grown owing to its various advantageous properties and application as electrode materials in the energy storage devices. The work presented here, a cubic Cu
2
O framework was synthesized using a simple and one-step modified polyol-assisted (metal-organic framework) solvothermal method. The structural configuration was rationalized by systematically studying the effect of the reaction time on the morphology and growth of the Cu
2
O. In addition, a range of microscopic and spectroscopic techniques was employed to further characterize the obtained cubic Cu
2
O. The morphological effect on the electrochemical supercapacitive performance of the obtained cubic Cu
2
O was also examined by cyclic-voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic-charge-discharge (G-C-D) method. The obtained outcome shows that the cubic Cu
2
O synthesized using a reaction time of 12 h (Cu
2
O-12h; C
sp
~365 Fg
−1
) exhibited superior capacitive performance as compared to the cubic Cu
2
O synthesized at 8 h (Cu
2
O-8h; C
sp
~151 Fg
−1
) and 10 h (Cu
2
O-10h; C
sp
~195 Fg
−1
) at the current density of 0.75 Ag
−1
. Furthermore, the Cu
2
O-12h electrode exhibits energy density of 16.95 Wh/Kg at a power density of 235.4 W/Kg and higher power density of 2678.5 W/Kg at low current density. In particular, the cube-like Cu
2
O-12h exhibited excellent capacitive performance and rate capability as compared to Cu
2
O-8h and Cu
2
O-10h, owing to its unique three-dimensional morphology, which facilitates the formation of various active sites for intercalation of the electrolyte during the electrochemical process. These results show the as-obtained Cu
2
O could be a promising supercapacaitive electrode material for various applications.