Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes (VACNTs)-coated flexible aluminium (Al) foil is studied as an electrode for supercapacitor applications. VACNTs are grown on Al foil inside thermal Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) reactor. 20 nm thick layer of Fe is used as a catalyst while Ar, H₂ and C₂H₂ are used as precursor gases. The effect of growth temperature on the structure of CNTs is studied by varying the temperature of CVD reactor from 550 °C to 625 °C. Better alignment of VACNTs arrays on Al foil is recorded at 600 °C growth temperature in comparison to other processing temperatures. Cyclic voltammetry results shows that VACNTs-coated Al foil has a specific capacitance of ~ 3.01 F/g at a scan rate of 50 mV/s. The direct growth of VACNT array results in better contact with Al foil and thus low ESR values observed in impedance spectroscopy analysis. This leads to a fast charge–discharge cycle as well as a very high value of power density (187.79 kW/kg) suitable for high power applications. Moreover, wettability study shows that the fabricated VACNT electrode has a contact angle of more than 152° which signifies that it is a superhydrophobic surface and hence shows lower specific capacitance in comparison to reported values for VACNT array. Therefore, it is necessary to develop suitable post-processing strategies to make VACNTs hydrophilic to realize their full potential in supercapacitor applications.

研究了垂直排列的碳纳米管（VACNTs）涂覆的柔性铝（Al）箔作为超级电容器应用的电极。VACNTs在热化学气相沉积（CVD）反应器内的铝箔上生长。铁的厚度为20 nm，用作催化剂，而Ar，H ₂和C ₂ H ₂用作前驱气体。通过将CVD反应器的温度从550°C改变到625°C，研究了生长温度对CNTs结构的影响。与其他加工温度相比，在600°C的生长温度下记录了VACNTs阵列在Al箔上的更好对准。循环伏安法结果表明，在50 mV / s的扫描速率下，涂覆VACNTs的Al箔具有〜3.01 F / g的比电容。VACNT阵列的直接生长导致与铝箔更好的接触，因此在阻抗谱分析中观察到较低的ESR值。这导致快速的充放电循环以及非常适合高功率应用的很高的功率密度值（187.79 kW / kg）。此外，润湿性研究表明，制成的VACNT电极的接触角大于152°，这表明它是超疏水性表面，因此与VACNT阵列的报道值相比，其比电容更低。因此，有必要开发合适的后处理策略以使VACNTs具有亲水性，以实现其在超级电容器应用中的全部潜力。