Self-Standing Polypyrrole/Black Phosphorus Laminated Film: Promising Electrode for Flexible Supercapacitor with Enhanced Capacitance and Cycling Stability

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2018 Jan 31;10(4):3538-3548. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b15458. Epub 2018 Jan 18.

Abstract

With the rapid development of portable electronics, solid-state flexible supercapacitors (SCs) are considered as one of the promising energy devices in powering electronics because of their intrinsic advantages. Polypyrrole (PPy) is an ideal electrode material in constructing flexible SCs owing to its high electrochemical activity and inherent flexibility, although its relatively low capacitance and poor cycling stability are still worthy of improvement. Herein, through the innovative introduction of black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets, we developed a laminated PPy/BP self-standing film with enhanced capacitance and cycling stability via a facile one-step electrochemical deposition method. The film exhibits a high capacitance of 497.5 F g-1 (551.7 F cm-3) and outstanding cycling stability of 10 000 charging/discharging cycles, thanks to BP nanosheets inducing laminated assembly which hinder dense and disordered stacking of PPy during electrodeposition, consequently providing a precise pathway for ion diffusion and electron transport together with alleviation of the structural deterioration during charge/discharge. The flexible SC fabricated by laminated films delivers a high capacitance of 452.8 F g-1 (7.7 F cm-3) besides its remarkable mechanical flexibility and cycling stability. Our facile strategy paves the way to improve the electrochemical performance of PPy-based SC that could serve as promising flexible energy device for portable electronics.

Keywords: black phosphorus; flexible; polypyrrole; self-standing; supercapacitor.