Influence of Ag doped graphene on electrochemical behaviors and specific capacitance of polypyrrole-based nanocomposites

In this work, silver (Ag) nanoparticles were deposited on graphene sheets by chemical reduction and Ag-doped graphene (Ag-GR)/polypyrrole(PPy) nanocomposites were prepared by oxidation polymerization. The effect of the Ag-GR incorporation on the electrochemical properties of the PPy nanocomposites was investigated. It was found that highly dispersed Ag nanoparticles (2-5 nm) could be deposited onto the GR and that Ag-GR was successfully coated by PPy. From the cyclic voltammograms. Ag-GR showed higher electrocatalytic activity than that of pristine GR. Furthermore, the Ag-GR/PPy showed remarkably increased current density, quicker response, and better specific capacitance compared with GR/PPy. This indicates that, due to their high electrocatalytic activity, the Ag nanoparticles deposited onto the GR serve as an efficiency catalyst to improve electrochemical performance of the GR/PPy and that they resulted in the increase of the charge transfer between GR and PPy by bridge effect. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.