Flexible Multiwall Carbon Nano-Tubes/Conductive Polymer Composite Electrode for Supercapacitor Applications

Abstract

The present paper investigates three types of electrically conductive polymers (ECPs), namely polyaniline, polypyrrole and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) PEDOT composite with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for supercapacitor applications. Their capacitive performance has been evaluated in both three electrodes half-cell and two electrodes cell setup. The nanocomposite were fabricated by polymerizing pseudocapacitive conductive polymer onto the MWCNT surface through the in-situ chemical polymerization approach. The composites were aimed to be optimized through varying the ECPs to MWCNT ratios. Half-cell electrochemical study was conducted to determine the optimal proportion of MWCNT and ECP in this parametric study. Two electrodes cell electrochemical study unveiled the potential device’s energy storage performance. MWCNT was found to act as the framework for the polymerization of the ECP into a tubular structure. Among the three composites, Ppy/MWCNT composite showed superior supercapacitor characteristics at scan rates of up to 500mV/s.