ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

A novel core-shell polyaniline/graphene oxide/copper nanocomposite for high performance and low-cost supercapacitors

Yu Ma, Dongyu Zhao, Yongheng Chen, Jing Huang, Zhixin Zhang, Xiwen Zhang, and Bin Zhang

Heilongjiang University, Harbin, China

E-mail: hacar1201@aliyun.com

Abstract: Herein, a new type of polyaniline/graphene oxide/copper (PANI/GO/Cu) composite with excellent specific capacitance value was synthesized by in situ polymerization. Polyaniline (PANI) is a conductive polymer with high Faradaic pseudocapacitance characteristics. By in situ polymerization with a graphene oxide/copper (GO/Cu) composite, PANI acts as a conductive matrix and provides good adhesion between copper nanoparticles and graphene sheets. It also greatly enhances the conductivity of the composite. In this paper, the process of the preparation of the PANI/GO/Cu composite is described in detail, and the performance and properties of the PANI/GO/Cu composite with different mass fractions of GO/Cu are investigated. The PANI/GO/Cu composite was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The electrochemical performance of the PANI/GO/Cu composite was analyzed by the conductivity method, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge/discharge (GCD) measurement. The results show that when the mass fraction of GO/Cu was 10%, the PANI/GO/Cu composite has an enhanced specific capacitance (557.92 F/g) and good cycling stability. The PANI/GO/Cu is a kind of easy-to-prepare, low-cost, corrosion-resistant, environmentally-friendly supercapacitor nanocomposite. The preparation of the ternary composite in this work provides a new insight into the construction of a high-performance supercapacitor.

Keywords: Nanocomposite ; Supercapacitors ; Low cost ; Specific capacitance 

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1007/s11696-018-0556-x

Chemical Papers 73 (1) 119–129 (2019)