In situ construction of hierarchical polyaniline/SnS2@carbon nanotubes on carbon fibers for high-performance supercapacitors

Abstract

Carbon fibers (CFs) show great potential for high-performance supercapacitors in miniature electronics fields, where high energy density and long cycling life are required. However, superior combination of these two attributes in CF-based supercapacitors still presents a long-standing challenge. Herein, straight carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with radial orientation and high chemical/physical stability are served as nanoscale conductive skeletons on CFs for supporting the polyaniline (PANI)/SnS2. The SnS2 with nanoflower-like features significantly increases the specific capacitance and specific surface area (SSA); furthermore, the PANI nanolayers covered on SnS2 petals enable secondary specific capacitance enhancement and inhibition of volume expansion of SnS2 during charging/discharging processes. Benefiting from these structural merits, the resultant PANI/SnS2@CNTs/CFs hybrids exhibit high SSA (2732.5 m2 g−1), high specific capacitance (891 F g−1 at 20 mV s−1) and excellent cycling stability (83.8% after 6000 cycles at 2 A g−1). Moreover, the hybrids deliver a superior energy density of 38.7 W h kg−1 at a power density of 1 kW kg−1 and outstanding performance stability, which should prove to be vastly advantageous as compared to the reported CF-based supercapacitors. Our work puts forward a new thinking of rational construction of high-performance CF-based supercapacitors that can be used in practical energy storage devices.