Polyaniline/graphene/carbon fiber ternary composites as supercapacitor electrodes

• We report a ternary supercapacitor electrode consisting of polyaniline, graphene and carbon fibers.
• Carbon fibers act as scaffolds in the hybrid materials.
• Graphene provides a large number of pores for the formation of electrochemical double layers.
• Polyaniline further enhances electrochemical capability of the composite electrode.
• The ternary supercapacitor electrode takes full advantage of each component.

An efficient way to make new type of energy storage electrode is to combine different materials to make full use of their respective characteristics. A ternary supercapacitor electrode consisting of polyaniline, reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and carbon fibers (CFs) with high electrochemical performance is reported. A bundle of CFs is wrapped with RGO possessing unique three dimensional porous structure. CFs act as scaffolds in the hybrid materials to ensure a continuous entity, while RGO possesses high specific surface area and provides a large number of pores for the formation of electrochemical double layers. The added polyaniline on RGO sheet surfaces further enhances electrochemical capability of the composite electrode because of its pseudo-capacitance characteristics. Such a ternary supercapacitor electrode takes full advantage of each component and demonstrates the potential as innovative supercapacitors.

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