High Performance Supercapacitor Electrode Materials Based on Activated Carbon and Conducting Polypyrrole

Abstract

The traditional supercapacitor is made of activated carbon, which shows lower specific capacity and higher resistance. In this paper, we demonstrated preparation of high performance supercapacitor electrode materials based on activated carbon and conducting polymer polypyrrole (ppy). In order to obtain well dispersion of ppy in activated carbon for lower resistance of electrode, a high-speed agate beads milling process was used to mix the ppy and porous carbon powder. By controlling the synergistic effect between ppy and activated carbon, a uniform structure composite electrode was prepared and the performance of this composite based supercapacitor was investigated. Compared with pure activated electrode, the obvious electrochemical performance improvement was achieved in composite electrode after the introduction of ppy. It has been found that electrode based on this composite has a maximum specific capacitance about 159 F/g, which was higher than pure activated carbon, and exhibited low resistance about 3.35 Ohm. The cycle performance results revealed that a 142 F/g (more than 88% of initial capacitance) capacitance was kept in composite electrode after 1000 cycles charge/discharge process. We conclude that the excellent synergistic effect between activated carbon and ppy resulted in superior electrochemical performance of composite electrode. Furthermore, the simple preparing method of composite electrode for supercapacitor assembly has potential commercial applications.