Enhanced Supercapacitor Performance Using Electropolymerization of Self-Doped Polyaniline on Carbon Film

Po-Hsin Wang; Tzong-Liu Wang; Wen-Churng Lin; Hung-Yin Lin; Mei-Hwa Lee; Chien-Hsin Yang

doi:10.3390/nano8040214

Enhanced Supercapacitor Performance Using Electropolymerization of Self-Doped Polyaniline on Carbon Film

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2018 Mar 31;8(4):214. doi: 10.3390/nano8040214.

Authors

Po-Hsin Wang¹, Tzong-Liu Wang², Wen-Churng Lin³, Hung-Yin Lin⁴, Mei-Hwa Lee⁵, Chien-Hsin Yang⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung 81148, Taiwan. p5802341@gmail.com.
² Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung 81148, Taiwan. tlwang@nuk.edu.tw.
³ Department of Environmental Engineering, Kun Shan University, Tainan71070, Taiwan. linwc@mail.ksu.edu.tw.
⁴ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung 81148, Taiwan. linhy@nuk.edu.tw.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung 84001, Taiwan. mhlee@isu.edu.tw.
⁶ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung 81148, Taiwan. yangch@nuk.edu.tw.

Abstract

In this work, we electrochemically deposited self-doped polyanilines (SPANI) on the surface of carbon-nanoparticle (CNP) film, enhancing the superficial faradic reactions in supercapacitors and thus improving their performance. SPANI was electrodeposited on the CNP-film employing electropolymerization of aniline (AN) and o-aminobenzene sulfonic acid (SAN) comonomers in solution. Here, SAN acts in dual roles of a self-doped monomer while it also provides an acidic environment which is suitable for electropolymerization. The performance of SPANI-CNP-based supercapacitors significantly depends upon the mole ratio of AN/SAN. Supercapacitor performance was investigated by using cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge and discharge (GCD), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The optimal performance of SPANI-CNP-based supercapacitor exists at AN/SAN ratio of 1.0, having the specific capacitance of 273.3 Fg^-1 at the charging current density of 0.5 Ag^-1.

Keywords: carbon-nanoparticle film; cyclic voltammetry; electropolymerization; self-doped polyaniline; supercapacitor.