Nanowires of polyaniline festooned silver coated paper electrodes for efficient solid-state symmetrical supercapacitors

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a facile strategy for the development of nanosilver decorated polyaniline coated (PAg) paper-based electrodes for the fabrication of solid-state symmetrical supercapacitors. PAg based printing paper was developed through a two-step process involving initial silver nucleation and growth on the paper followed by aniline polymerization. The developed electrically conductive paper exhibited a highly porous structure and excellent mechanical stability. Further symmetrical supercapacitors having the configuration PAg/electrolyte/PAg were fabricated and evaluated for electrochemical performance such as specific capacitance (483 F g⁻¹ and 613 F g⁻¹ in aqueous 1 M H₂SO₄ and PVA–H₂SO₄ gel electrolytes respectively), energy density (69.56 and 85.13 W h kg⁻¹), and power density (243.44 and 405.375 W kg⁻¹) and cycling stability (90% of its capacitance retention even after 2000 cycles), exhibiting excellent performance under various bending conditions. All these exciting results suggest that the developed paper-based flexible solid-state energy device can serve as an efficient, sustainable, and low-cost energy storage system for portable microelectronic devices which are expected to revolutionize the perception of energy-storage devices in the electronics industry.