Strongly coupled polyaniline/graphene hybrids with much enhanced capacitance performance.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Polyaniline (PANI) and graphene are promising materials for energy storage.
• Strong interactions between PANI and graphene are crucial for enhanced performance.
• Existing methods for fabricating PANI-graphene hybrids can be improved.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a facile strategy for fabricating strongly coupled hybrids of PANI nanofibers and graphene (PAGs).
• To investigate the potential of these hybrids as electrode materials for supercapacitors (SC).
• To evaluate the electrochemical performance, including capacitance, cycling stability, energy density, and power density.

Main Methods:

• Functionalizing graphene oxide with different diamines.
• Fabricating polyaniline (PANI) nanofibers and graphene (PAGs) hybrids.
• Utilizing the ethylenediamine-functionalized hybrid (PAG-EDA) as an electrode material in a two-electrode supercapacitor (SC).
• Characterizing the electrochemical performance using cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge-discharge, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.

Main Results:

• The ethylenediamine-functionalized hybrid (PAG-EDA) exhibited an excellent volumetric specific capacitance of 810 F cm(-3) at 5 mV s(-1).
• The SC demonstrated high cycling stability, retaining 84.4% of its initial capacitance after 10,000 cycles.
• PAG-EDA-based SCs achieved high energy density (92.15 Wh kg(-1)) and high power density (182.28 kW kg(-1)).

Conclusions:

• The facile strategy successfully created strongly coupled PANI-graphene hybrids.
• PAG-EDA is a superior electrode material for supercapacitors, outperforming previously reported PANI-based materials.
• These findings highlight the potential of functionalized PANI-graphene hybrids for advanced energy storage applications.