Nitrogen-doped 3D reduced graphene oxide/polyaniline composite as active material for supercapacitor electrodes

A facile strategy for the fabrication of a nitrogen-doped 3D reduced graphene oxide (N-3D-rGO) macroporous structure is proposed in this paper. The proposed strategy used polystyrene microspheres as the templates and melamine as the nitrogen source. Using β-MnO2 as the oxidant, the as-prepared N-3D-rGO was then composited with polyaniline (PANI) nanowires (denoted as N-3D-rGO/PANI-B). The structure, morphology, and electrochemical properties of the composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, cyclic voltammetry, charge-discharge test, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Results revealed that the N-3D-rGO/PANI-B composite has a better specific capacity than the composites prepared with 3D-rGO as the support material and peroxydisulfate as the oxidant. These results suggested that N-3D-rGO/PANI-B has potential applications in supercapacitors.