Non-covalent modification of graphene sheets in PEDOT composite materials by ionic liquids

An ionic liquid (IL) supported composite of poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and graphene oxide (GO) is presented. GO was dispersed in ILs and electropolymerization carried out after loading of EDOT to the dried dispersion. The content of GO was optimized to obtain high electrical conductivity of the composite material. The IL acts as the dispersant for GO and as dopant in the synthesis of PEDOT leading to films with a highly porous structure indicated from the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. Subsequently, GO was reduced electrochemically by cyclic voltammetry to obtain PEDOT/rGO composite films. The successful formation of composite materials was confirmed using Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. XPS was also used to verify removal of oxygen-containing functional groups upon electrochemical reduction of the composite films. The electrochemical properties of PEDOT, PEDOT/GO and PEDOT/rGO were studied using cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results show that electrochemical reduction clearly increases the capacitance of the composite and furthermore the cycling stability. Such an increase could be obtained if >20 cycles, extending to highly negative potentials (−2.0 V), was used during the electroreduction of incorporated GO. Owing to the high porosity, favorable electrochemical properties and cycling stability these hybrid materials shows great potential towards supercapacitor applications.