Dielectric Energy Storage Performance of Reductive Polyaniline/Polyethylenimine All-Organic Composite Films with...

High-efficiency energy storage technologies have become particularly crucial with the ever-increasing demand for energy in recent years. Research on polymer nanocomposite dielectric materials has emerged as a prominent focus. Particularly, there is an urgent demand for the development of advanced dielectric film materials that exhibit superior energy storage performance over a wide temperature range. To this end, this study aims to investigate the effect of the molecular weight of reduced polyaniline (R-PANI) on the dielectric properties of all-organic composite films based on high-temperature-resistant polyetherimide (PEI). All-organic R-PANI/PEI composite films were fabricated by blending PEI matrix with R-PANI of varying molecular weights. Through combined density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experimental measurements, the blocking mechanism of R-PANI on charge carrier migration within the composite films was elucidated, showing a significant enhancement in the discharge energy density of PEI polymers while maintaining high charge-discharge efficiency. With charge-discharge efficiency maintained above 95%, R-PANI3/PEI achieved a discharge energy density of 2.36 J cm^-3 at room temperature, nearly double that of pristine PEI (1.2 J cm^-3). At 150 °C, the 1.0 wt% R-PANI3/PEI composite film retained a discharge energy density of 2.27 J cm^-3 with a charge-discharge efficiency of 89.2%, outperforming pure PEI (1.1 J cm^-3, 85.1%). These findings provide a new strategy for the design of all-organic composite dielectric films and demonstrate the potential of R-PANI in the application of high-performance capacitors and electrical energy storage.