Fabrication on the Flexible Supercapacitor Based on the Polypyrrole Deposited on Polyethylene/Polypropylene Non-Woven Film

Abstract

Non-woven films of polypropylene/polyethylene (PP/PE) are usually used as filter membrane or diaphragm because of their excellent mechanical strength and chemical stability. Here, by using PP/PE as substrates, the composite films of FeTS/(PP/PE) are prepared via drop-coating iron p-toluenesulfonate (FeTS) on the PP/PE. Polypyrrole (PPy) is then deposited on PP/PE non-woven films to form the PPy/(PP/PE) composites by reacting the pyrrole vapor with oxidant of FeTS. The structure of PPy/(PP/PE) prepared under different conditions have been characterized in detail. Using H3PO4/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as the gel electrolyte, the flexible symmetric electrochemical capacitors (FEC) of PPy/(PP/PE)//PPy (PP/PE) are prepared and the properties of the devices are determined. The results show that the optimized FEC exhibits relatively high areal specific capacitance (246.6 mF cm–2 at 2 mV s–1 scan rate), excellent cyclic stability (capacitance retention is 92.5% after 20 000 cycles), and excellent flexibility (the capacitance retention is 90.0% after 2000 and 81.3% after 3000 repeated bending cycles), which indicate that this kind of FEC may have potential application in flexible electronic device.