Surfactant determines the morphology, structure and energy storage features of CuO nanostructures

Surfactant favours morphology: The surfactants acting as structure directing agents and providing different Copper oxide (CuO) morphologies. Among different morphologies, CuOleaves exhibiting good electrochemical property including higher capacitance, rate performance and lower charge transfer resistance. [Display omitted] •Surfactants facilities the growth of different CuO morphologies.•Cost effective and simple preparation method favours mass production.•Leaves like CuO shows attractive electrochemical features. In quest for cost-affordable but high performing supercapacitor (SC), we explored fabrication of electrode material of copper oxide (CuO) nanostructures using simple solution-based synthesis procedure and different surfactants. Here, we report the influence of the surfactants on the morphological and structural evolutions as well as energy-storage capacity of the CuO. As an SC electrode material, CuO exhibits considerably high specific capacity (51 mAhg−1 @ 1Ag−1), good rate performance (31 mAhg−1 @ 10Ag−1) and better cyclic stability. In addition, it has low charge transfer resistance (1.6 Ω), which is very important when performing charge–discharge at high current rates. These results are highlighting the way for its use in design of advanced CuO-based supercapacitor devices.