Issue 3, 2017

Ultrahigh stability of high-power nanofibrillar PEDOT supercapacitors

Abstract

Keeping pace with the increasing energy demand, the scientific community continues to develop superior energy storage technologies by expanding the field of nanostructured organic electronics and by engineering advanced electrochemical capacitors. Here, we demonstrate enhanced performance of a nanofibrillar electrochemical capacitor from a conducting polymer, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), conformally deposited on a substrate via evaporative vapour phase polymerization (EVPP). The synthesis grafts polymer nanofibers to aromatic groups on a carbon paper current collector via Friedel–Crafts alkylation utilizing iron chloride oxidant facilitated by nitromethane as a catalyst activator. By grafting EVPP-PEDOT, our devices attain remarkable stability, retaining 90% of their initial capacitance over 350 000 cycles in 1 M H2SO4 at 5 A g−1 current density in a 1 V window; at 10 A g−1, 90% of the capacitance is retained over 200 000 cycles. Besides showing ultra-high stability, these devices possess high power density (25 kW kg−1 at 1 V and 30 kW kg−1 at 1.2 V) with a respective energy density of 4.3 W h kg−1 and 4.9 W h kg−1, as well as a 0.8 Ω minimal electrochemical series resistance that enables fast charge–discharge rates. For applications requiring high energy densities, 5.8 W h kg−1 at 1 V and 7.6 W h kg−1 at 1.2 V are obtained at power densities of 500 W kg−1, 1 V and 550 W kg−1, 1.2 V respectively. This work proposes a synthetic mechanism for the deposition of nanofibrillar PEDOT that controls device performance and demonstrates stable energy storage technology with high power density.

Graphical abstract: Ultrahigh stability of high-power nanofibrillar PEDOT supercapacitors

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
31 Jan 2017
Accepted
07 Mar 2017
First published
27 Mar 2017

Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2017,1, 482-491

Ultrahigh stability of high-power nanofibrillar PEDOT supercapacitors

S. Acharya, L. M. Santino, Y. Lu, H. Anandarajah, A. Wayne and J. M. D'Arcy, Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2017, 1, 482 DOI: 10.1039/C7SE00057J

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements