Synthesis and Electrochemical Characterization of Polypyrrole/Multi-walled Carbon Nanotube Composite Electrodes for Supercapacitor Applications

Abstract

The nanocomposites of polypyrrole (PPy) and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) with different composition are synthesized by the chemical oxidative polymerization method. In these composites, the MWCNTs are uniformly coated by PPy with different thickness. The electrochemical properties of the composite electrodes are investigated by cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge-discharge cycling and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The full cells assembled with the PPy/MWCNT composite electrodes deliver initial specific capacitances ranging from 146.3 to 167.2 F/g at 0.5 mA/cm 2 and exhibit stable cycling characteristics. The effect of content of MWCNT in the composite on cycling performance of the cells is also investigated.

Recent Progress on Electrochemical Capacitors Based on Carbon Nanotubes

“…Composites of conducting polymers with carbon nanotubes are promising electrode materials as supercapacitors because of their good conductivity, high surface area, and excellent ability to store energy [7,[108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117]. The composites combine the large pseudocapacitance of conducting polymers with the fast charging/discharging double-layer capacitance and excellent mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes [118].…”

“…CNT s/conductingpolymercompositescanbepreparedbychemical [7,13,108,113,114,[118][119][120][121] or electrochemical [14, 16, 95, 110-112, 115, 118, 119, 121] polymerization. This process can be carried out on pristine CNTs or CNTs modified with functional groups or heteroatoms as a noncovalent deposition polymeric layer onto the nanotubular surface or covalent functionalization of carbon walls by polymeric chains.…”

Polypyrrole/Carbon Nanotubes/Lactate Oxidase Nanobiocomposite Film based Modified Stainless Steel Electrode Lactate biosensor

“…2 (a) it is observed that the diameter of the individual PPy/c-MWCNT fibril has increased to nearly 40-50 nm which is larger than that of the corresponding MWCNT fibril alone (~20 nm). This suggests that the nanocomposite exhibits well dispersed carbon nanotubes over Polypyrrole film (Lien et al, 2010, Paul et al, 2010. The PPy/c-MWCNT layer is characterized by a very fibrous structure of interlocking pores.…”

Electroconducting materials based on polypyrrole

“…Great electronic conductivity, very high surface area, excellent chemical and mechanical stability make CNTs suitable in a compensation of disadvantages of conducting polymers synthesized for supercapacitor applications [109][110][111][112][113]. Very high specific capacitance and good high-rate capability of electrode material has been achieved by synthesis of PPy/CNT composite with controlled pore size in a three-dimensional entangled structure of a CNT film using an electrostatic spray deposition process [112].…”

“…Recently, Paul et al synthesized polypyrrole (PPy) / multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) / conductive carbon (CC) composites by chemical oxidative polymerization method using anhydrous FeCl 3 . The impedance behavior of PPy / MWCNT / CC electrodes in their insulating state, have been taken before and after performed chargingdischarging 500 cycles in the potential range from 0 to 0.6 V. Charge transfer resistance, R ct , of composites comprising 10, 15 and 20 wt% of MWCNT determined before cycling processes have shown values of 7.4, 2.1 and 4.3 respectively, which indicated that only optimal amount of MWCNT could facilitate the charge transfer throughout the system [113].…”