Tubular polyaniline and graphene oxide composites for enhanced capacitance performance in supercapacitors

Polyaniline (PANI) is one of the most attractive tantalum capacitor materials. In order to enhance electrolyte diffusion and improve the electrochemical performance of the electrode, a well-designed PANI morphology is required. The incorporation of carbon materials is also beneficial to improve the cycle stability, mechanical and electrochemical properties of PANI. In this study, a simple solution method was used to synthesize a tubular deposited PANI. Due to the clear structure, the specific capacity (CF) reached 437.8 F/g at a current density of 4 A/g. In addition, self-synthesized graphene oxide (GO) is simply mixed with the particulate deposited tubular PANI to produce a more efficient capacitive material. The optimized PANI/GO electrode achieved an enhanced CF value of 475.0 F/g due to the synergistic effect of the tantalum capacitor from PANI and the functional group of GO and the electrochemical double layer capacitance from GO. After 2000 cycles of repeated charge/discharge processes, a 90% CF retention rate and an average coulombic efficiency above 90% were also obtained for the optimized PANI/GO electrode.