Improving the electrochemical performance by sulfonation of polyaniline-graphene-silica composite for high performance supercapacitor

In this work, to increase the specific capacitance and energy density of reduced graphene oxide-silica composite (RGO-SiO2), pseudocapacitive behaviour of polyaniline is introduced to RGO-SiO2(PANI-RGO-SiO2) and further improved by sulfonating the polyaniline system (SPANI-RGO-SiO2). Formation of SPANI-RGO-SiO2 is confirmed from IR and XRD analyses. SPANI-RGO-SiO2 shows nanorods morphology with less crystalline nature. The specific capacitance of RGO-SiO2 is increases from 24 to 780 F g(-1) with sulfonation of polyaniline in RGO-SiO2. Retention in the specific capacitance value of SPANI-RGO-SiO2 is 85% with that of its original value of 780 F g(-1) with coulombic efficiency (96-99%). [GRAPHICS] .