Oriented Polyaniline Nanowire Arrays Grown on Dendrimer (PAMAM) Functionalized Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes as Supercapacitor Electrode Materials

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 6268 - 10
• Main Authors: Jin, Lin, Jiang, Yu, Zhang, Mengjie, Li, Honglong, Xiao, Linghan, Li, Ming, Ao, Yuhui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 19.04.2018; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 140/133; 639/638/161/891; 639/638/298/917; Capacitance; Electrochemistry; Electrodes; Electrolytes; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Nanotechnology; Nanotubes; Polymerization; Scanning electron microscopy; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-24265-7

At present, PANI/MWNT composites have been paid more attention as promising electrode materials in supercapacitors. Yet some shortcomings still limit the widely application of PANI/MWNT electrolytes. In this work, in order to improve capacitance ability and long-term stability of electrode, a multi-amino dendrimer (PAMAM) had been covalently linked onto multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) as a bridge to facilitating covalent graft of polyaniline (PANI), affording P-MWNT/PANI electrode composites for supercapacitor. Surprisingly, ordered arrays of PANI nanowires on MWNT (setaria-like morphology) had been observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Electrochemical properties of P-MWNT/PANI electrode had been characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge-discharge technique. The specific capacitance and long cycle life of P-MWNT-PANI electrode material were both much higher than MWNT/PANI. These interesting results indicate that multi-amino dendrimer, PAMAM, covalently linked on MWNT provides more reaction sites for in-situ polymerization of ordered PANI, which could efficiently shorten the ion diffusion length in electrolytes and lead to making fully use of conducting materials.