Supercapacitor Properties of rGO-TiO₂ Nanocomposite in Two-component Acidic Electrolyte

The electrochemical properties of the highly porous reduced graphene oxide/titanium dioxide (rGO/TiO₂) nanocomposite were studied to estimate the possibility of using it as a supercapacitor electrode. Granular aerogel rGO/TiO₂ was used as an initial material for the first time of manufacturing the electrode. For the aerogel synthesis, industrial TiO₂ Hombikat UV100 with a high specific surface area and anatase structure was used, and the aerogel was carried out with hydrazine vapor. Porous structure and hydrophilic-hydrophobic properties of the nanocomposite were studied with a method of standard contact porosimetry. This is important for a supercapacitor containing an aqueous electrolyte. It was found that the hydrophilic specific surface area of the nanocomposite was approximately half of the total surface area. As a result of electrochemical hydrogenation in the region of zero potential according to the scale of a standard hydrogen electrode, a reversible Faraday reaction with high recharge rate (exchange currents) was observed. The characteristic charging time of the indicated Faraday reaction does not exceed several tens of seconds, which makes it possible to consider the use of this pseudocapacitance in the systems of fast energy storage such as hybrid supercapacitors. Sufficiently high limiting pseudo-capacitance (about 1200 C/g TiO₂) of the reaction was obtained.