Polyaniline nanofibers confined into graphene oxide architecture for high-performance supercapacitors

Synergetic Effect of Polyaniline and Graphene in Their Composite Supercapacitor Electrodes: Impact of Components and Parameters of Chemical Oxidative Polymerization

The current development of clean and high efficiency energy sources such as solar or wind energy sources has to be supported by the design and fabrication of energy storage systems. Electrochemical capacitors (or supercapacitors (SCs)) are promising devices for energy storage thanks to their highly efficient power management and possible small size. However, in comparison to commercial batteries, SCs do not have very high energy densities that significantly limit their applications. The value of energy density directly depends on the capacitance of full SCs and their cell voltage. Thus, an increase of SCs electrode specific capacitance together with the use of the wide potential window electrolyte can result in high performance SCs. Conductive polymer polyaniline (PANI) as well as carbonaceous materials graphene (G) or reduced graphene oxide (RGO) have been widely studied for usage in electrodes of SCs. Although pristine PANI electrodes have shown low cycling stability and graphene sheets can have low specific capacitance due to agglomeration during their preparation without a spacer, their synergetic effect can lead to high electrochemical properties of G/PANI composites. This review points out the best results for G/PANI composite in comparison to that of pristine PANI or graphene (or RGO). Various factors, such as the ratio between graphene and PANI, oxidants, time, and the temperature of chemical oxidative polymerization, which have been determined to influence the morphology, capacitance, cycling stability, etc. of the composite electrode materials measured in three-electrode system are discussed. Consequently, we provide an in-depth summary on diverse promising approaches of significant breakthroughs in recent years and provide strategies to choose suitable electrodes based on PANI and graphene.

Mechanistic study of Cr (VI) removal by modified alginate/GO composite via synergistic adsorption and photocatalytic reduction

A novel composite material was prepared by blending graphene oxide into polyethyleneimine grafted sodium alginate. The synthesized material was investigated as adsorbent and photocatalyst for the removal of hexavalent chromium (Cr (VI)) from aqueous solutions. The composite material has shown remarkable removal efficiency for Cr (VI) in high initial concentration solutions as the removal rate reached 86.16% and 99.92% for adsorption and photoreduction, respectively. We discovered experimentally that the adsorption was dominated via electrostatic interaction while the blending of GO could contribute in stimulating electrons for the photoreduction process. Moreover, the photoreduction can alter the surface charge of chromium species, thus electrostatic repulsion could regenerating the active sites of composite spontaneously. The conduction band energy was calculated as -2.04 eV, which proved that blending GO can narrow the bandgap of the composite material, thus enhance the light response and the photoreduction ability towards Cr (VI).

Efficient heavy metal removal from water by alginate-based porous nanocomposite hydrogels: The enhanced removal mechanism and influencing factor insight

Novel porous alginate-based nanocomposite hydrogels were prepared by incorporating polyaniline-polypyrrole modified graphene oxide (GO@PAN-PPy) as reinforcing fillers into the alginate matrix (GO@PAN-PPy/SA) for Cr(VI) and Cu(II) removal from water. Different in-situ co-polymerization functionalized GO with Py-to-An mass ratios of monomers (from nil to 1:1) and contents of GO@PAN-PPy (from nil to 2.0%(w/v)) were embedded into the alginate backbone to improve the sorption performance. Key factors, such as pH, coexisting metal ions, and swelling states were investigated in batch adsorption modes. The synergistic effect combined from polymer backbone and fillers could lower the impact of the pH-dependent adsorption reaction. With an adsorption ability superior to that of plain SA and GO/SA, the optimized GO@PAN-PPy-2(1)/SA exhibited good experimental maximum adsorption capacities for Cr(VI) (~133.7 mg/g) and Cu(II) (~87.2 mg/g) at pH 3.0, which were better than those of many other similar sorbents. The sorbents possessed excellent adaptability for 0.2 M salt for Cr(VI) removal but poor for Cu(II) removal. Pre-swelling treatment and co-adsorption could enhance the adsorption performance. The excellent reusability of hydrogel was demonstrated after five cycles in single/binary system. Overall, this work reveals that the resultant hydrogel holds potential as candidate sorbent to remove anionic-cationic heavy metal ions from water.

Preparation of Slightly Crumpled Aminated Graphene Nanosheets for Honeycomb-Like Flexible Graphene/PANI Composite Film Electrode with Enhanced Capacitive Performance in Solid-State Supercapacitors

Slightly crumpled aminated graphene nanosheets were prepared via the mild surface modification of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets with p-phenylenediamine at room temperature to inhibit the restacking of graphene but avoid cross-linking during the solvothermal or microwave-assisted treatments, and then the honeycomb-like flexible graphene/polyaniline (PANI) composite film electrode, PANI@rPGO, was developed by the facile vacuum filtration and reduction. Owing to the slightly crumpled PGO nanosheets with surface amino groups, the honeycomb-like PANI@rPGO composite film, with a well-defined dispersion of PANI nanorods in the graphene-based matrix and the hierarchically porous structure, possessed superior electrochemical performance as a robust electrode in flexible solid-state supercapacitors (SSCs). The symmetric SSCs based on the PANI@rPGO electrode possessed a high capacitance of 564.5 F/g and 2015.2 mF/cm² at 0.5 A/g (2.2 mA/cm²), superior cyclic life with retentions of 104.2 and 78.5% after 2000 and 5000 cycles at 3 A/g, as well as excellent flexibility. The mild one-pot preparation and the superior electrochemical performance make the designed PANI@rPGO composite film electrode a potential candidate for high-performance flexible SSCs.

Asymmetric supercapacitor of functionalised electrospun carbon fibers/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/manganese oxide//activated carbon with superior electrochemical performance

Asymmetric supercapacitors (ASC) have shown a great potential candidate for high-performance supercapacitor due to their wide operating potential which can remarkably enhance the capacitive behaviour. In present work, a novel positive electrode derived from functionalised carbon nanofibers/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/manganese oxide (f-CNFs/PEDOT/MnO₂) was prepared using a multi-step route and activated carbon (AC) was fabricated as a negative electrode for ASC. A uniform distribution of PEDOT and MnO₂ on f-CNFs as well as porous granular of AC are well-observed in FESEM. The assembled f-CNFs/PEDOT/MnO₂//AC with an operating potential of 1.6 V can achieve a maximum specific capacitance of 537 F/g at a scan rate of 5 mV/s and good cycling stability (81.06% after cycling 8000 times). Furthermore, the as-prepared ASC exhibited reasonably high specific energy of 49.4 Wh/kg and low charge transfer resistance (R_ct) of 2.27 Ω, thus, confirming f-CNFs/PEDOT/MnO₂//AC as a promising electrode material for the future energy storage system.