Electronic enhancement of hybrid specific capacity of carbon nanotube bone charcoal composite with Ag nanoparticle decoration

Abstract We show a significant enhancement of specific capacity of a hybrid composite prepared with carbon nanotube (CNT), bone charcoal and Ag nanoparticle (NP) constituents which may be explained by a mechanism involving the electronic coupling of Fermi levels of the NP and defective CNT. This electronic coupling leads to an additional specific capacity which is given by (CNPxCCNT)/(CNP + CCNT), where CNP and CCNT are the Li specific capacity of NP and CNT constituents, respectively. As a result, the specific capacity of defective carbon nanotube can be increased by twice with incorporation of only 0.8 wt.% of Ag NPs.