Seed polymerization and capacitive performances of polyaniline nanofibers

State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, and College of Material Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China

^* Corresponding author: phqin@dhu.edu.cn

Abstract

Polyaniline (PANI) nanofibers have great potential application as a lightweight and high-performance pseudocapacitive material for supercapacitors. In this work, aniline oligomers as the seeds are produced in weak acidic solution of phosphoric acid through dilution polymerization, then these seeds were used to promote the grow of PANI nanofibers in the condition of hydrochloric strong acidic by adding more aniline monomers again. The microstructure and capacitance performances of PANI nanofibers were investigated by SEM, FT-IR, XRD and electrochemical measurements. When the current density is 1 A g^-1, the specific capacitance could be as high as 442.9 F g^-1. This work provides a route for the simple and efficient preparation of electrode materials with excellent performance.