Free-Standing Composite Hydrogel Film for Superior Volumetric Capacitance M. Moussa, Z. Zhao, M. El-Kady, H. Liu, A. Michelmore, N. Kawashima, P. Majewski and J. Ma, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015, DOI: 10.1039/C5TA03113C.
Research Abstract
High volumetric capacitance is vital for the development of wearable and portable energy storage devices.
We herein introduce a novel simple route for the fabrication of a highly porous, binder-free and
free-standing polyaniline/reduced graphene oxide composite hydrogel (PANi/graphene hydrogel) as an
electrode with a packing density of 1.02 g cm3. PANi played critical roles in gelation, which include
reduction, crosslinking, creation of pseudocapacitance and as a spacer preventing graphene sheets from
stacking. The composite hydrogel film delivered a volumetric capacitance of 225.42 F cm3 with a twoelectrode
supercapacitor configuration, which was enhanced to 592.96 F cm3 in a redox-active
electrolyte containing hydroquinone. This new strategy will open a new area for using conducting
polymer derivatives in the development of flexible graphene electrodes towards many applications such
as batteries, sensors and catalysis.
Research Keywords
graphene, polyaniline, supercapacitor