A rapid synthesis of mesoporous Mn₂O₃ nanoparticles for supercapacitor applications

Mn₂O₃ nanomaterials have been recently composing a variety of electrochemical systems like fuel cells, supercapacitors, etc., due to their high specific capacitance, low cost, abundance and environmentally benign nature. In this work, mesoporous Mn₂O₃ nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by manganese acetate, citric acid and sodium hydroxide through a hydrothermal process at 150 °C for 3 h. The synthesized mesoporous Mn₂O₃ NPs were thoroughly characterized in terms of their morphology, surfaces, as well as their crystalline, electrochemical and electrochemical properties. For supercapacitor applications, the synthesized mesoporous Mn₂O₃ NP-based electrode accomplished an excellent specific capacitance (C_sp) of 460 F·g^-1 at 10 mV·s^-1 with a good electrocatalytic activity by observing good electrochemical properties in a 6 M KOH electrolyte. The excellent C_sp might be explained by the improvement of the surface area, porous surface and uniformity, which might favor the generation of large active sites and a fast ionic transport over the good electrocatalytic surface of the Mn₂O₃ electrode. The fabricated supercapacitors exhibited a good cycling stability after 5000 cycles by maintaining ~83% of C_sp.