Flexible carbon nanotube/polyaniline paper-like films and their enhanced electrochemical properties

The carbon nanotube/polyaniline (CNT/PANI) composites have important potential applications as the electrodes in energy storage devices for their attractive electrochemical properties. In this work, we report a novel method to prepare the interesting paper-like CNT/PANI composites by using the CNT network as the template. Compared with the conventional brittle CNT/PANI composites, these paper-like composites were much thin and flexible. This work demonstrates a new approach, which may transform a brittle polymer into flexible films. Meanwhile, these film electrodes showed much superior electrochemical performance such as higher specific capacitance, lower internal resistivity, and more stability under different current loads. These paper-like composite electrodes have promising applications in new kinds of energy storage devices. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.