Carbon Black‐Filled Nitrile Rubber Composite as a Flexible Electrode for Electrochemical Synthesis of Supercapacitive Polyaniline

Abstract

This work reports the development of carbon black‐filled flexible conductive composite as an effective electrode material to substitute of graphite for electrochemical synthesis of supercapacitive polyaniline (PAni). Elastomeric composites of acrylonitrile butadiene copolymer (NBR) as a matrix with different types of carbon black fillers viz., N660, N330 and XC72 (VULCAN® XC‐72) were prepared through melt mixing method. Among these composites, NBR‐XC72 exhibited the highest bulk electrical conductivity and charge carrier concentration coupled with good mechanical properties. Generally, high level of conductivity is required for a material to be used as an electrode in electrochemical synthesis. The NBR‐XC72 composite with 90 phr black loading can be used as an effective material for electrode electrochemical synthesis of PAni from aniline. Two different PAni samples were prepared using both graphite electrode (PAni‐G) as well as flexible composite electrode (PAni‐R). The specific capacitance of PAni‐G was found to be around 380 Fg−1 in comparison to 213 Fg−1 for PAni‐R at the discharge rate of 1 Ag−1. The retention of specific capacitance of PAni‐R was found to be 90% notably better than that of Pani‐G (81%) after 1,000 cycles of charge–discharge (CD) process. POLYM. COMPOS., 40:E1537–E1547, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers