Electrochemical preparation of poly(2,3-dihydrothieno[3,4-b][1,4]dioxin-2-yl)methanol)/carbon fiber core/shell structure composite and its high capacitance performance

• A 3-D structure PDHDM/CF core/shell composite electrode was prepared.
• CF can obviously improve the capacitance performance of PDHDM.
• The energy density of PDHDM based supercapacitor was 6.38 Wh kg−1 at 3.9 kW kg−1.

Poly(2,3-dihydrothieno[3,4-b][1,4]dioxin-2-yl)methanol)/carbon fiber composite material (PDHDM/CF) was prepared via a simple electrodeposition method. The CF core and the PDHDM shell formed a 3-D PDHDM/CF core/shell structure composite. The PDHDM/CF was characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, UV–vis spectra, SEM, cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge/discharge and electrochemical impedance spectroscope techniques. Compared with the PDHDM deposited on glass carbon electrode (PDHDM/GC), PDHDM/CF exhibited a remarkable specific capacitance of 280 F g−1 at a scan rate of 10 mV s−1, which was nearly three times that of the PDHDM/GC. The specific capacitance of assembled symmetric supercapacitor based on PDHDM/CF reached 27.35 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 and the energy density was 6.38 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 3.9 kW kg−1. These results indicated that the PDHDM/CF was a promising electrode material for the flexible supercapacitors application.