Flexible PVP/PEO/MnO2 Polymer Nanocomposites based Cathode Material for Asymmetric Supercapacitor

The solution casting method has been used to design a polymer nanocomposite (PNC) based on polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), polyethylene oxide (PEO) and manganese dioxide nanoparticles (MnO2 NPs) at different concentrations. The effective integration of MnO2 NPs in the PVP/PEO blend matrix has been characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). An XRD study has demonstrated that adding MnO2 nanoparticles up to 1 wt.% of MnO2 increases the crystallinity of polymer nanocomposites. As the wt.% MnO2 NPs grew from 0.25 to 1 at room temperature, the values of ε' increased from 12.5 to 112.5 at 42 Hz and the value of ε″ increased to 1656 at ambient temperature and then to 20752 at 373 K for 1 wt.% MnO2. Asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) has been fabricated and its electrochemical performance has been evaluated. All CV curves exhibited a non-rectangle shape even at a high scan rate of 100 mV s–1 for all ASC devices, suggesting the good capacitive behaviours of PNC electrodes.