Design and construction of three-dimensional CuO/polyaniline/rGO ternary hierarchical architectures for high performance supercapacitors

•A well-defined CuO-PANI-rGO ternary hybrid electrode was fabricated.•PANI serves as charge transport channels and high specific capacitance donor.•The hybrid supercapacitor displays great electrochemical property and stability.

Rational design in terms of component and microstructure and fabrication of electrochemical electrodes are crucially important towards superior energy storage device. Herein, we report a novel CuO-PANI-rGO ternary hybrid electrode self-assembled by an in situ polymerization method combined with hydrothermal route for electrochemical capacitor. Well-defined CuO hierarchical architecture is synthesized by the spontaneous oxidization of Cu nanowire. PANI acts as not only binder for anchoring CuO architecture on rGO surface, but also charge transport channels, and high specific capacitance donor to the whole electrode matrix. The typical CuO-PANI-rGO ternary hybrid electrode can be reversibly cycled in a high voltage region up to 1.2 V. And it displays a maximum specific capacitance of 634.4 F g−1 and a high energy density of 126.8 Wh kg−1 with a power density of 114.2 kW kg−1 at a current density of 1.0 A g−1. Furthermore, the ternary hybrid electrode exhibits great cycle life with 97.4% specific capacitance retention after 10000 cycles. Those excellent performances are proposed to derive from the well-defined nanostructure, conductive porous microstructure and homogenously contact. This study might be important for designing the unique structure and component electrode for achieving high performance energy storage device.

Graphical abstractCuO-PANI-rGO ternary hybrid electrode fabricated by an in situ polymerization method combined with hydrothermal route has been used as a high energy density supercapacitor.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide