Development of 1.6 V Hybrid Supercapacitor Based on ZnO Nanorods/MnO2 nanowires for Next-Generation Electrochemical Energy Storage

•Some of the main features of this article are as follows:•ZnO/MnO2//AC ASC was fabricated for the first time.•ZnO-40% MnO2 electrode had a greater specific capacitance of 304 F g-1 than pure MnO2 (206.5 F g-1).•ZnO-40% MnO2//AC ASC delivered a high energy density of 26 Wh kg-1 at 1100 W kg-1 and retained 12 Wh kg-1 when the specific power increased to 4790 W kg-1.•ZnO/MnO2 showed excellent stability of 86% retention after 8,000 cycles. The present study portrays the synthesis of ZnO/MnO2-based nanocomposite with different weight percentages of MnO2 (10% and 40%, signifies as ZM-1 and ZM-4), and their morphological-dependent electrochemical performance has been demonstrated. The morphological study was explored using SEM analysis which showed that the ZnO and MnO2 reflected the nanorods/nanowires morphology. During the electrochemical study, the optimized ZM-4 nanostructures demonstrated a specific capacitance of (304/155.0) Fg-1 at 1/3 Ag-1, which is significantly higher than pure ZnO (160.6 Fg-1), and MnO2（206.5 Fg-1. Furthermore, the capacitance of the built hybrid supercapacitor reached 105.0 F g-1 after the expansion of the voltage window to 1.6 V with decent cycling durability. More importantly, a 26 Wh kg-1 energy density at 4790 Wkg-1 power density was obtained, manifesting that ZnO/MnO2 is a highly appealing potential material for energy storage and conversion.