Enhancing supercapacitive performance of polyaniline by interfacial copolymerization with melamine

Polyaniline is a promising pseudo-capacitive material due to its low cost, ease of synthesis and high theoretical capacitance. However its application in commercial supercapacitors due to low cyclic stability was hindered. In order to overcome this deficiency in a facial one step approach, aniline-melamine copolymer (AMC) synthesized through interfacial copolymerization method at two different conditions. Electrochemical characterizations of the products proved that copolymerization of polyaniline with melamine led to a considerable improvement in supercapacitive performance (specific capacitance of 720 F g(-1) at 5 mV s(-1) and 83 % capacitance retention after 1500 cycles) compared with pure PANI nanofibers obtained from the interfacial polymerization (specific capacitance value of 440 F g(-1) at 5 mV s(-1) and 30 % capacitance retention after 1250 cycles). Also, copolymer samples with higher melamine content showed better supercapacitive performance (AMC-1 vs. AMC-2).