Conducting Polyaniline Nanowire Arrays Modified Electrode for High Performance Supercapacitor and Enhanced Catalysis of Nitrite Reduction

• Published in: Electroanalysis (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 28; no. 12; pp. 2979 - 2984
• Main Authors: Hui, Ni, Wang, Jiasheng, Liang, Aiqin, Jiang, Meilin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2016
• Subjects: Alignment; Arrays; Conducting polymer; Electrodes; Nanowires; Nitrite sensor; Nitrites; Polyaniline nanowire array; Polyanilines; Reduction; Supercapacitor; Supercapacitors
• ISSN: 1040-0397; 1521-4109
• DOI: 10.1002/elan.201600160

Vertically aligned conducting polymer nanowire arrays had great potential applications in supercapacitor electrode material and exhibited enhanced electrocatalytic behavior towards the reduction of nitrite. In this paper, a facial template‐free approach to synthesize large arrays of vertically aligned polyaniline (PANI) nanowires on electrochemically pretreated glassy carbon electrodes was reported by using a galvanostatic current method. The as‐prepared large arrays of PANI nanowires had very narrow diameters and were oriented perpendicular to the substrate, which was a benefit to the ion diffusion when being used as the supercapacitor electrode. The highest specific capacitance of PANI nanowire arrays was measured and kept high at a large charge‐discharge current density. Furthermore, it also can detect nitrite with ultrahigh sensitivity of 62.99 µA mM−1 cm−2 and a remarkable fast response time of less 1 s. The results indicated that the vertically aligned PANI nanowires could dramatically enhance the electrochemical performance.