Dielectric Energy Storage Performance of Reductive Polyaniline/Polyethylenimine All-Organic Composite Films with Tunable Molecular Weight and Chain Structure
High-efficiency energy storage technologies have become particularly crucial with the ever-increasing demand for energy in recent years. Research on polymer nanocomposite dielectric materials has emerged as a prominent focus. Particularly, there is an urgent demand for the development of advanced dielectric film materials that exhibit superior energy storage performance over a wide temperature range. To this end, this study aims to investigate the effect of the molecular weight of reduced polyaniline (R-PANI) on the dielectric properties of all-organic composite films based on high-temperature-resistant polyetherimide (PEI). All-organic R-PANI/PEI composite films were fabricated by blending PEI matrix with R-PANI of varying molecular weights. Through combined density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experimental measurements, the blocking mechanism of R-PANI on charge carrier migration within the composite films was elucidated, showing a significant enhancement in the discharge energy density of PEI polymers while maintaining high charge–discharge efficiency. With charge–discharge efficiency maintained above 95%, R-PANI3/PEI achieved a discharge energy density of 2.36 J cm−3 at room temperature, nearly double that of pristine PEI (1.2 J cm−3). At 150 °C, the 1.0 wt% R-PANI3/PEI composite film retained a discharge energy density of 2.27 J cm−3 with a charge–discharge efficiency of 89.2%, outperforming pure PEI (1.1 J cm−3, 85.1%). These findings provide a new strategy for the design of all-organic composite dielectric films and demonstrate the potential of R-PANI in the application of high-performance capacitors and electrical energy storage.
Authors
- Jingyu Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2986-7816)
- Ruihang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0052-8772)
- Xinyan Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5717-2714)
- Qixin Zhuang
- Yuanfeng Li
- Peiyuan Zuo
- Shumu Zhou
Institutions
- East China University of Science and Technology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Polymers
- Published
- 2026-04-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/polym18091080
- Primary Topic
- Dielectric materials and actuators
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Shanghai Science and Technology Development Foundation
- National Natural Science Foundation of China