Preparation and application of polyaniline-based flexible gel electrodes in supercapacitors

Abstract

The development of energy storage devices that can withstand large and complex deformation is crucial for emerging wearable electronic devices. At present, hydrogels made of conductive polymers have achieved the fusion of high conductivity and versatility during processing. A simple two-step copolymerization method was used to successfully construct a hydrogel supercapacitor with a rich microporous structure: polyvinyl alcohol(PVA) and polyacrylamide(PAM) form a double cross-linked network hydrogel, which endows rigid polymer aniline with flexibility. In addition, polyacrylamide improves the mechanical strength of polyaniline-based hydrogels, making polyaniline-based(NPP)hydrogels have good mechanical and electrochemical properties, and the tensile strength and specific capacitance are 0.3 MPa and 269.12 F·g-1 under 1 A·g-1, respectively. The addition of polyaniline(PANI) reduces the internal resistance of polyvinyl alcohol and polyacrylamide double cross-linked network hydrogel(PP) electrode, and its modified resistance value is 39.184 Ω, which makes the NPP hydrogel realize higher electron transmission capacity. The flexible development and integration of such hydrogels provide an alternative strategy of energy systems for diverse applications such as supercapacitors.

Keywords

• supercapacitor
• polyaniline
• flexible
• hydrogel