Graphene oxide–polyaniline–polypyrrole nanocomposite for a supercapacitor electrode

Abstract

Graphene oxide based nanocomposites were prepared through the in situ polymerization of aniline and pyrrole to study the interaction of graphene oxide with polyaniline (PANI) and polypyrrole (PPy). Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was used to study the surface morphology and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for the qualitative understanding of the internal structure of PANI/PPy coating on GO. The chemical structures of composites were studied through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. It was observed that specific capacitance of PPy coated GO improved by ∼122.73% compared to pristine GO. Moreover, the binding energy of polypyrrole–graphene oxide was found to be higher than polyaniline–graphene oxide because of the absence of oxygen containing functional groups. In addition, the storage capacity was effectively improved due to the synergistic effect of polypyrrole coating on graphene oxide.