CuO-rGO Composites as Electrode Materials for High Performance Super Capacitor and Electrochemical sensing Applications

In this work, CuO nanospheres rGO composites was used as electrodes materials for supercapacitor applications. The CuO was synthesized by simple sol- gel precipitation procedure followed by calcination. The obtained CuO spheres were used for composite preparation with the pre synthesized rGO. As synthesized CuO-rGO composites were characterized by p-XRD, FT-IR and SEM studies. The SEM studies confirm the spherical morphology of the CuO nano structures. Next, the electrochemical properties of the CuO-rGO composites were studied using the CV, GCD and EIS techniques in 3 electrode systems. The CuO-rGO composite electrode exhibited specific capacitance of 300.81 F g ^− 1 at 0.1 A g ^− 1 . The electrochemical charge storage capacity of the CuO-rGO composites were greater than that of the pristine CuO, GO as well as rGO materials. The high specific capacity of CuO-rGO composites, are due to the unique homogeneous spherical morphology of the CuO nano structures, high conducting nature of the rGO and synergetic effects of the composites. Further more electrocatalytic oxidation of glucose was also investigated using CuO-rGO modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE).The CuO-rGO modified GCE exhibits good electrocatalytic oxidation for glucose, and it has been applied for glucose monitoring in serum samples. The gluose sensing ability of CuO-rGO modified GCE in serum samples were satisfactory when compared with standard clinical methods. This suggests that the CuO-rGO composites have great potential for energy storage and electrochemical sensing device applications.