A facile sonochemical assisted synthesis of α-MnMoO4/PANI nanocomposite electrode for supercapacitor applications

One-dimensional porous alpha-MnMoO4 nanorods and polyaniline (PANT) wrapped alpha-MnMoO4 based hybrid (alpha-MnMoO4/polyaniline as inorganic/organic) nanocomposite electrode materials were prepared by sonochemical and in-situ oxidative polymerization techniques, respectively. The compositional and structural details of alpha-MnMoO4 phase were confirmed using X-ray diffraction (XRD analysis), confocal Raman spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The formation of nanostructured morphology has been elucidated through field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). The electrochemical properties have been examined using cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge-discharge, cycling stability and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The X-ray diffraction pattern of alpha-MnMoO4/PANI nanocomposite electrode material showed the feasibility of reduction of alpha-MnMoO4 crystallinity by the addition of 0.3 ml of aniline monomer wrapped over alpha-MnMoO4 nanorods. Morphological images of newly prepared bare alpha-MnMoO4 and alpha-MnMoO4/PANI nanocomposites formed with the addition of various amounts (0.1 ml, 0.2 ml & 0.3 ml) of aniline monomer exhibit a rod like structure with porous nature and also depict the variation of polyaniline wrapping over alpha-MnMoO4 nanorods. The alpha-MnMoO4/PANI nanocomposite material obtained upon addition of 0.3 ml of aniline monomer exhibits a high specific capacitance value of 396 F/g at a scan rate of 5 mV/s and good cyclic stability up to 500 cycles at 100 mV/s. All the experimental results revealed that newly prepared hybrid alpha-MnMoO4/PANI nanocomposite with the addition of 0.3 ml of aniline monomer acts as a promising electrode material for high performance super capacitors. An attempt also has been made to explain the enhancement of electrochemical property of alpha-MnMoO4 through density functional theory calculation and preliminary results are appropriately presented.