Polyaniline-Carbon Nanotubes@Zeolite Imidazolate Framework­67-Carbon Cloth Hierarchical Nanostructures for Supercapacitor Electrode

•The flexible PANI-CNT@ZIF-67-CC with hierarchical porous structure was constructed.•The PANI-CNTs@ZIF-67-CC was used as supercapacitor electrode directly.•The PANI-CNTs@ZIF-67-CC showed high specific capacitance.•At 0.5 mA cm−2, the specific capacitance maintained 83% after 1000 charging/discharging cycles.

Polyaniline (PANI)-carbon nanotubes (CNT)@zeolite imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) −carbon cloth (CC) (PANI-CNT@ZIF-67-CC) was constructed as supercapacitor electrode. Herein, the PANI-CNT@ZIF-67 was used as active materials and the flexible CC was employed as flexible collector electrode. The obtained PANI-CNT@ZIF-67-CC supercapacitor electrode was carefully characterized with scanning electron microscopy, N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, X-ray powder diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electrochemical techniques. It was found that porous ZIF-67 was enclosed by a large number of CNT and partial CNT went through the ZIF-67, which improved the electroconductivity of the nanocomposites greatly. The CNT@ZIF-67 nanocomposites was covered by lots of PANI. Originating from the synergistic effect of PANI (including excellent electrical activity, well pseudo capacitance and good chemical doping/undoping) and CNT@ZIF-67-CC (including large specific surface area, hierarchical porous nanostructures and good electroconductivity), the obtained PANI-CNT@ZIF-67-CC supercapacitor electrode showed good performances. Under the sweep rate of 10 mV s−1, the PANI-CNTs@ZIF-67-CC supercapacitor electrode exhibited a specific capacitance of 3511 mF cm−2. At the current density of 0.5 mA cm−2, the specific capacitance maintained 83% after 1000 charging/discharging cycles.

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