Carbon-polyaniline nanocomposites as supercapacitor materials

Abstract

Polyaniline-based nanocomposites containing carbon nanotubes (CNT), reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and mixture of CNTs and rGO were synthesized. UV-visible spectroscopy and FT-IR spectroscopy confirmed the presence of polyaniline (PANi) and carbon nanomaterials. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the neat PANi had a granular morphology, which can lead to increased electrical resistance to high interfacial resistance between domains of PANi. Cyclic voltammetry of PANi, PANi/CNT, PANi/rGO and PANi/CNT/rGO showed that in general, specific capacitance reduces with increasing scan rate within the range (10–100 mV s−1). Also the specific capacitance values at any given scan rate within the above range, for PANi, PANi/CNT, PANi/rGO and PANi/CNT/rGO were found to be in increasing order. The specific capacitance of the PANi/CNT/rGO nanocomposite as measured by galvanostatic charge-discharge measurements, was found to be 312.5 F g−1. The introduction of the carbon nanomaterials (CNTs, rGO) in PANi in general leads to improved specific capacitance, while the addition of CNTs and rGO together leads to synergistic improvement in the specific capacitance, owing to a combination of factors.