Synthesis of conductive polyaniline (PANI) as electrode material for supercapacitor applications

Conductive polyaniline (PANI) was successfully synthesized via chemical oxidative polymerization for supercapacitor applications. The synthesized PANI was characterized using various structural, spectroscopic, microscopic, and electrochemical techniques to evaluate its physicochemical and energy storage properties. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed the low-crystalline nature of the prepared PANI. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy confirmed the successful formation of conducting polyaniline through the appearance of characteristic vibrational bands associated with the benzenoid and quinoid structures. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed a granular and interconnected morphology, while transmission electron microscopy (TEM) together with selected area electron diffraction (SAED) further verified the nanostructured and low-crystalline characteristics of the material. The electrochemical performance of the PANI electrode was evaluated in 1 M H 2 SO 4 electrolyte within a potential window of -0.1 to 0.8 V using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge/discharge (GCD) techniques. The CV curves exhibited pseudocapacitive behavior with distinct redox peaks, indicating fast and reversible faradaic reactions. From the GCD measurements, the PANI electrode exhibited a maximum specific capacitance of 214 F g -1 at a current density of 100 mA g -1 . The electrode also showed good cycling stability by retaining 71% of its initial capacitance after 5000 charge-discharge cycles and an average coulombic efficiency of 93.74%.