Tyrosine-dopamine conjugate head group functionalized bioinspired naphthalene diimide bolaamphiphile: Design, synthesis and efficient supercapacitor applications

Abstract

Organic material based energy storage devices have been received tremendous attention due to their environmentally friendly and renewable source. Such molecular architectures are regarded as the promising candidates in fabricating lightweight and flexible electrode materials for supercapacitors (SCs). In this work, we designed and successfully synthesized neurotransmitter, dopamine (DP) and natural amino acid, L-tyrosine (Tyr) conjugate functionalized naphthalene diimide (NDI) based electrode materials for SCs electrodes. The resulting electrode material naphthalenediimide-tyrosine-dopamine (NDI-Tyr-DP) in combination with graphite foil (GF) possess higher specific capacitance (Csp) of about 303 F g−1 at 5 mV s−1 scan rate (cyclic voltammetry, CV) and 318 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 current density (GCD) in three-electrode system SC device. In a symmetric two-electrode SC setup, the NDI-Tyr-DP/GF electrode exhibited highest Csp up to 85 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 current density, which is the competitive value reported for the organic systems. The as-fabricated NDI-Tyr-DP/GF//NDI-Tyr-DP/GF two-electrode symmetric supercapacitor (SSC) showed high energy density of 10.63 Wh kg−1 and power density of 899 W kg−1 at 0.5 A g−1. SSC displayed 77.10 % capacitance retention after 5000 GCD cycles. We expect that the design and construction of SCs with naturally important smart functionalities can open a door to develop new kind of SCs for energy storage devices in future microelectronic areas.