Polyanilines from spent battery powder and activated carbon: Electrodes for asymmetric supercapacitor cell

Abstract

AbstractThis work aims to use the electro‐active materials for energy storage application from the waste raw material source, readily and indigenously available materials. Nowadays, the use of waste sources to prepare electro‐active materials for energy storage applications is trending due to their low‐cost, high availability, reduced environmental problems, and so forth. In this direction, Polyaniline (PANI) is prepared using a MnO2 oxidant collected from waste Zn‐C cells. PANI displayed a compact and interconnected granular morphology with a surface area (39 m2 g−1), pore volume (0.19 cm3 g−1), and pore diameter (2.2 nm). Activated carbon (AC) has a surface area (860 m2 g−1), pore volume (199 cm3 g−1), and pore diameter (1.2 nm) is purchased locally. FT‐IR, XRD, and EDAX spectra support the formation of polyaniline salt with a small amount of Mn and Zn. The asymmetric cell is constructed using a PANI as a positive electrode and carbon as negative electrode material. The cell (PANI//AC) shows a high specific capacitance of 157 F g−1 at a current density of 5 mA cm−2. The cell offers a cycle life stability of 5000 cycles with a coulombic efficiency of 93% at a current density of 10 mA cm−2.