Efficient Electrode Material based on Carbon Cloth Supported Polyaniline/Reduced Graphene Oxide Composites for Supercapacitor Application

Nowadays, world energy infrastructure is being stretched due to imbalance between energy production and energy consumption; renewable and sustainable energy storage and conversion techniques could resolve this issue. Thus global energy requirements, limited availability of fossil fuels and environmental crisis drive the expansion of alternative or non- conventional energy sources with high energy and power densities. Electrochemical capacitors or supercapacitors, with a combined form of high power density and energy density, have acquired a stunning acceptance towards the field of electrochemical energy storage. Supercapacitors are used in electric vehicles, mobile phones, digital cameras, wearable devices, portable devices and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) etc. Here, we have reported the binder free carbon cloth supported polyaniline/reduced graphene oxide (PRGO) composite hydrogel as a high performance supercapacitor electrode synthesized by a facile chemical polymerization method using phytic acid (PA). The electrochemical performance of binder free carbon cloth based PRGO composite hydrogel electrode has been analysed using cyclic voltammetry (CV), and galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) techniques. The high specific capacitance (C_S) ~ 235.32 F g^-1 has been obtained for the PRGO composite hydrogel @cc in 1 M H₂SO₄. The electrochemical results show that the binder free carbon cloth based PRGO composite hydrogel electrode is a promising candidate for supercapacitors. (author)