Electrochemical performance of binder-free NiO-PANI on etched carbon cloth as active electrode material for supercapacitor

Highlights: • EC-NiP electrode has been prepared by dual step synthesis method. • Binder-free EC-NiP composite fabricated electrode exhibits good electrochemical performance of 193 Fg⁻¹ at 0.5 Ag⁻¹. • The electrodes show excellent reversibility with 72% capacitance after 4500 cycles at different current density. Binder free electrode for supercapacitor application was successfully fabricated which consists of carbon cloth‑nickel oxide-polyaniline (EC-NiP). The composite electrode was prepared by growing NiO on EC via hydrothermal followed by the electrodeposition of PANI. The crystallite sizes of NiO were varied from 5.73 nm to 17.81 nm over the temperature range of 200 to 500 °C. The optimized electrode, heated at 300 °C (NIP300) showed good specific capacitance of 192.31 Fg⁻¹ with energy density of 21.63 mWhkg⁻¹ and 4.81 Wkg⁻¹ of power density at 0.5 Ag⁻¹ current density in 0.5 M H₂SO₄ electrolyte. The symmetrical NIP300//PVA + 0.5 M H₂SO₄//NIP300 cell exhibit excellent reversibility where the specific capacitance retained 72% of the initial value after 4500 cycles.