Fabrication of 3D lawn-shaped N-doped porous carbon matrix/polyaniline nanocomposite as the electrode material for supercapacitors

A facile approach to acquire electrode materials with prominent electrochemical property is pivotal to. the progress of supercapacitors. 3D nitrogen-doped porous carbon matrix (PCM), with high specific surface area (SSA) up to 2720 m(2) g(-1), was obtained from the carbonization and activation of the nitrogen enriched composite precursor (graphene/polyaniline). Then 3D lawn-shaped PCMJPANI composite was obtained by the simple in-situ polymerization. The morphology and structure of these resulting composites were characterized by combining SEM and TEM measurements, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy analyses and Raman spectroscope. The element content of all samples was evaluated using CHN analysis. The results of electrochemical testing indicated that the PCM/PANI composite displays a higher capacitance value of 527 F g(-1) at 1 A g(-1), compared to 338 F g(-1) for pure PANI, and exhibits appreciable rate capability with a retention of 76% at 20 A g(-1) as well as fine long-term cycling performance (with 88% retention of specific capacitance after 1000 cycles at 10 A g(-1)). Simultaneously, the excellent capacitance performance coupled with the facile synthesis of PCM/PANI indicates it is a promising electrode material for supercapacitors. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.