Facile fabrication of polyaniline with coral-like nanostructure as electrode material for supercapacitors

•Coral-like PANI was prepared in the presence of SY as dopant and surfactant.•Coral-like PANI showed large specific capacitance and good cycling stability.•High doping level and strong π-π interaction were confirmed by spectral studies.

Polyaniline (PANI) with coral-like nanostructure was prepared via chemical oxidative polymerization in the presence of sunset yellow (SY) as dopant and surfactant. The results showed that in comparison with the microsized bulky structure of PANI undoped with SY, the coral-like nanostructure of PANI doped with SY (PANI/SY) was observed and the diameter of coral branch decreased from 180 nm to 100 nm with the increase of feeding molar ratio of SY to aniline. Coral-like PANI/SY showed the large specific capacitance of 467 F/g and nice electrochemical stability when the feeding molar ratio of SY to aniline was 0.035:1, owning to its special coral-like nanostructure and high conductivity of 15.0 S/cm, which was essentially attributed to the synergistic effects of high doping level, ordered arrangement of PANI chain and strong π-π interaction between PANI and SY.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (184KB)Download full-size image