Fabricating composite supercapacitor electrodes of polyaniline and aniline-terminated silica by mechanical agitation and sonication

Abstract

In this study, the composites of polyaniline (PANI) and aniline-terminated silica (M-SiO2), as supercapacitor electrodes, were prepared by a facile method of mechanical agitation combined with sonication. The obtained PANI/M-SiO2 composites were analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge–discharge (GCD), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. Compared with PANI, PANI/M-SiO2 exhibited a maximum specific capacitance of 307.5 F/g by GCD test at 1 A/g with a potential range of 0–0.8 V. PANI/M-SiO2 retained approximately 93% of its capacitance after 500 cycles of charge–discharge at 8 A/g, whereas pure PANI retained only 70%. The excellent electrochemical performances of the PANI/M-SiO2 composites were attributed to the synergetic interaction between the PANI and M-SiO2 nanoparticles.