Uniform Coating of Polyaniline on Porous Carbon Nanofibers as Efficient Electrodes for Supercapacitors

Abstract

Porous activated carbon nanofibers (A-CNFs) are fabricated and considered as promising electrode materials for electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) due to their free-standing and hierarchical pore structure. They exhibit high specific capacitances in 1 M H2SO4 without any significant loss at high scan rates. To further enhance charge storage, we incorporated polyaniline onto A-CNFs with the aim to combine the benefits of both EDLCs (high power density) and pseudocapacitors (high energy density). By using a simple galvanostatic deposition, we achieve a uniform coating of polyaniline on A-CNFs. Combination of two different storage mechanisms results in an excellent specific capacitance of 290 F g−1. Cyclic voltammetric measurements show no significant change at scan rates up to 100 mV s−1.