Assembly of ordered polyaniline-graphene hybrid nanomaterials based on poly(2-methoxyaniline-5-sulfonic acid) functionalized graphene nanosheets

•Nanostructure of ordered polyaniline-graphene (PANI-rGOPMAS) hybrid nanomaterial is assembled based on poly(2-methoxyaniline-5-sulfonic acid) (PMAS) functionalized reduced graphene oxide (rGOPMAS) nanosheets.•For rGOPMAS, the presence of PMAS not only improves dispersibility of reduced graphene oxide nanosheets, but also plays a key role for heterogeneous nucleation of polyaniline nanorods.•The conductivity of PANI-rGOPMAS hybrid with 17 wt% rGOPMAS is as high as 4480 S/m, compared with 2.93 S/m for pure PANI.•PANI-rGOPMAS containing 2 wt% rGOPMAS possesses fast response to redox reactions, excellent reversible stability and a high specific capacitance of 385 F g−1.

Nanostructure of ordered polyaniline-graphene (PANI-rGOPMAS) hybrid nanomaterials is assembled based on poly(2-methoxyaniline-5-sulfonic acid) (PMAS) functionalized reduced graphene oxide (rGOPMAS) nanosheets. The presence of PMAS not only improves dispersibility of reduced graphene oxide nanosheets, but also plays a key role for heterogeneous nucleation of polyaniline (PANI) nanorods. The formation mechanism of ordered PANI-rGOPMAS hybrid nanomaterials was studied in details by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry (UV-vis). The conductivity of PANI-rGOPMAS hybrid with 17 wt% rGOPMAS is as high as 4480 S/m, compared with 2.93 S/m for pure PANI. The cyclic voltammetry tests indicate that, PANI-rGOPMAS containing 2 wt% rGOPMAS possesses fast response to redox reactions and excellent reversible stability. It has a high specific capacitance of 385 F g−1 at the scan rate of 10 mV s−1 with potential ranges from −0.2 to 0.8 V. This ordered polyaniline-graphene hybrid has potential applications for flexible supercapacitors, sensors, batteries, electromagnetic materials and thermoelectric materials, etc.

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