ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we discussed about the developments of the supercapacitors by using the zinc-based inorganic materials because of their high degree of thermal and chemical stability along with high energy densities and excellent electrical conductivity. Zinc-based materials are eco friendly than lead-acid and lithium materials and due to their electrochemical properties they are in use as an active material in battery applications. The different structure of the zinc-based nanomaterials are in use as an electrode material in supercapacitors such as zinc oxide nanowire, zinc hydrochloride nanosheet, zinc sulfide nanosphere and flower-like zinc molybdate etc. due to their different surface areas and electrochemical activities. ZnO NWs comes with high surface areas, good electrical conductivity, low synthesis temperature along with added advantage to grow at any shape and sizes in any substrates. Nanosheets of zinc hydroxychloride (Simonk) carry unique chemical and physical properties with specific gravity and Mohs hardness 3.2 and 1.5 respectively and it can be grown along [001] plane direction with hexagonal shapes. Nanospheres of zinc sulfide (ZnS) plays an important role in supercapacitors due to the possibility of tuning of their band gaps. Due to the abundance, inexpensive, high electrochemical properties and presence of zero to +6 oxidation states flower-like zinc molybdates was another very important zinc-based materials for supercapacitor applications. Hence, in this chapter we presented the improved performances of zinc-based nanomaterials for the design of supercapacitors.
