High-crystalline tetraaniline nanofibers deposited carbon cloth as flexible electrode for high-performance solid-state supercapacitors

Abstract

To enhance the electrochemical energy storage property of the carbon cloth (CC)-based supercapacitors, high-crystalline tetraaniline (cTA) nanofibers were deposited onto the oxidized carbon cloth (OCC) here, via a facile post-synthetic solution-based self-assembly method. With the optimized depositing condition, the flexible free-standing cTA/OCC-5 electrode was obtained with much higher specific capacitance of 2119.2 mF/cm2 at 1.0 mA/cm2 in comparison with the OCC of 1501.8 mF/cm2 and the tetraaniline impregnated OCC (TA/OCC) of 1623.1 mF/cm2, which was prepared by the solvent evaporation method with the same TA content as the cTA/OCC-5. To further improve the cyclic life of the cTA/OCC-5 electrode in symmetric solid-state supercapacitors, 0.01 M Na2SO4 was added in the H2SO4/PVA gel electrolyte. With the similar energy density and power density, the H2SO4/Na2SO4/PVA gel-based device possessed higher cyclic stability with retention of 99.97% after 10,000 cycles than the H2SO4/PVA gel-based device of 90.58%.