One-pot mechanochemical exfoliation of graphite and in situ polymerization of aniline for the production of graphene/polyaniline composites for high-performance supercapacitors

Abstract

Graphene/polyaniline composites have attracted considerable attention as high-performance supercapacitor electrode materials; however, there are still numerous challenges for their practical applications, such as the complex preparation process, high cost, and disequilibrium between energy density and power density. Herein, we report an efficient method to produce graphene/polyaniline composites via a one-pot ball-milling process, in which aniline molecules act as both the intercalator for the exfoliation of graphite and the monomer for mechanochemical polymerization into polyaniline clusters on the in situ exfoliated graphene sheets. The graphene/polyaniline composite electrode delivered a large specific capacitance of 886 F g⁻¹ at 5 mV s⁻¹ with a high retention of 73.4% at 100 mV s⁻¹. The high capacitance and rate capability of the graphene/polyaniline composite can contribute to the fast electron/ion transfer and dominantly capacitive contribution because of the synergistic effects between the conductive graphene and pseudocapacitive polyaniline. In addition, a high energy density of 40.9 W h kg⁻¹ was achieved by the graphene/polyaniline-based symmetric supercapacitor at a power density of 0.25 kW kg⁻¹, and the supercapacitor also maintained 89.1% of the initial capacitance over 10 000 cycles.