Rational design of active layer configuration with parallel graphene/polyaniline composite films for high-performance supercapacitor electrode

For the traditional supercapacitors based on the graphene@polyaniline (PANI) film prepared by electropolymerization, the interfacial contact between the graphene substrate and PANI shell plays a vital role in improving the PANI stability and the electrochemical capacitance of the active layer. In this work, we propose a novel strategy that the reduced graphene oxide (RGO) hydrogel film with given size could be divided into two for respective PANI electrodeposition and the two graphene@PANI films are assembled parallelly on carbon cloth to obtain the supercapacitor electrode. Owing to the additional lateral RGO/PANI interface, the resulting electrode delivers a high specific capacitance of 949 Fg(-1) at 1 Ag-1 and 760 Fg(-1) even at the high current density of 20 Ag-1. The corresponding binder-free symmetric supercapacitor device could attain a maximum energy density of 18.2 Wh kg(-1) and a maximum power density of 4.75 kW kg(-1), with a high capacitance retention of 93.1% after 10000 charge/discharge cycles. These superior properties of the electrodes based on the parallel RGO/PANI films testify the rational design of the active layer configuration for enhanced interfacial effect. This work would provide a novel pathway towards the preparation of high-performance supercapacitor electrodes. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

A novel strategy was proposed to enhance the performance of electrodes by assembling two graphene@polyaniline films in parallel on carbon cloth, achieving high specific capacitance and capacitance retention. This work provides a new pathway for improving the performance of supercapacitor electrodes.