Polypyrrole/carbon aerogel composite materials for supercapacitor

Polypyrrole (PPy)/carbon aerogel (CA) composite materials with different PPy contents are prepared by chemical oxidation polymerization through ultrasound irradiation and are used as active electrode material for supercapacitor. The morphology of PPy/CA composite is examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that PPy is deposited onto the surface of CA. As evidenced by cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge/discharge test and EIS measurements, PPy/CA composites show superior capacitive performances to CA, moreover, the results based on cyclic voltammograms show that the composite material has a high specific capacitance of 433 F g(-1), while the capacitance of CA electrode is only 174 F g(-1). Although the supercapacitor used PPy/CA as active electrode material has an initial capacitance loss due to the instability of PPy, the specific capacitance after 500 cycles stabilizes nearly at a fixed value. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.