Polyaniline/Nickel Oxide–a Core/Shell Structured Nanocomposite as Electrode Material in Supercapacitor Applications

Abstract

In this paper, the supercapacitor electrode properties of a core/shell multifunctional nano composite, with unique physiochemical properties, is presented. The synthesis method of polyaniline /NiO (PAESNI) with polyaniline (PANI) shell on NiO core, their morphological studies including Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to know their surface chemistry and most important property required for explaining super capacitor properties like Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) and Charging Discharging studies (GCD) are explained. TEM and SEM images reveal that the polyaniline shells as-prepared are narrowly dispersed on NiO nano particles and possess uniform morphologies. CV shows that the PAESNI exhibits multiple redox behaviour during potentiodynamic cycling in acidic media at different potentials. A simple and cost-effective preparation technique with hierarchical structure and good capacitive behaviour (362 Fg-1 at 1 Ag-1 current density and 372 Fg-1 at 20 mVs-1 scan rate), Energy density (50.2 WhKg-1 at 1 Ag-1 current density), Power density (2 kWKg-1) and 99% coulombic efficiency at 4 Ag-1 current density encourages its commercial use as a high performance supercapacitor electrode.