Synthesis of MnO2 as candidate for the material of supercapacitor’s electrode by green chemistry method through dehydroxylation of Cananga odorata flowers’ essential oil

The rapid technological advancement has accelerated the demand for portable electronic devices that require energy storage media. The high-performance supercapacitor is one of the energy storage media with excellent capacitance and a great lifecycle. Currently, various synthesis methods on the electrode component of the supercapacitor have been developed. However, most of that synthesis is not environmentally friendly. This study aims to synthesize MnO2 through a green chemical process with the minimum usage of non-environmentally friendly additives. This study uses ylang-ylang flower essential oil (Cananga odorata) as the raw material. The primary stages of synthesis include the isolation of essential oil from the ylang-ylang flower through the steam-water distillation process, synthesis of MnO2 through dihydroxylation reaction using the ylang-ylang flower essential oil with various calcination temperatures, and the characterization of the produced synthesis using XRD, SEM, and CV. The XRD results show that the MnO2 has been successfully synthesized and generated a number of polymorphs of α, γ, and δ. Meanwhile, the highest MnO2 purity has been obtained from 500°C calcination temperature and dominated by the δ-MnO2 polymorph. The results of the SEM test suggest that the synthesized product is in the form of a nano-sized particle with an average diameter of 49.8 nm. The results of the CV test signify that the specific capacitance of MnO2 calcinated at 500°C temperature is 29.21 mF/g so that the synthesized MnO2 is the potential supercapacitor candidate.