Abstract:
The addition of zinc oxide (ZnO) as impregnation for activated carbon (AC) with the hydrothermal method has been performed in this research. Vetiver distillation waste has been used as a precursor for activated carbon synthesized with pyrolisis methods. Carbon is activated by a chemical process using KOH. Enhancement of amorph structure and function group by addition of zinc oxide has been characterized by Raman Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FT-IR), and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). Furthermore, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) has been done to show the electrochemical properties enhancement of the ZnO/AC compared to pristine AC. At the current density of 1 A/g, the specific capacitance of VRW-ACM has a value of 277 F/g. After the impregnation process, the specific capacitance of VRW-ACM-ZnO has been improved by 44.4% compared to VRW-ACM. The result showed that the activated carbon-based vetiver root waste impregnated with ZnO has the potential to be applied as supercapacitors electrodes.
