Issue 24, 2013
From the journal:

RSC Advances

High total-electrode and mass-specific capacitance cellulose nanocrystal-polypyrrole nanocomposites for supercapacitors†

Soon Yee Liew,a   Darren A. Walsh*b  and  Wim Thielemans*a  

* Corresponding authors

a Process and Environmental Research Division, Faculty of Engineering, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
E-mail: wim.thielemans@nottingham.ac.uk

b School of Chemistry, the University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
E-mail: darren.walsh@nottingham.ac.uk

Abstract

For practical applications, new supercapacitor electrode materials need to exhibit a high mass-specific capacitance (CM/F g−1), a high total-electrode capacitance (CE/F cm−2), and high stability during charge–discharge cycling. Very often, newly developed materials display high CM values for thin films (nm or μm thickness) but these rapidly drop off in the thicker electrode structures needed for commercial devices. In this work, we describe the fabrication of thick nanocomposites of polypyrrole (PPY) and cellulose nanocrystals (CNXLs) with consistently high capacitance (CM = 240 F g−1) and performance. CE of the PPY-CNXL nanocomposite increased linearly with increasing film thickness up to a value of 1.24 F cm−2 and this increased to a maximum of 1.54 F cm−2 for even thicker films where non-linear CE increases were due to electrolyte diffusion limitations. Testing of a symmetric supercapacitor with these high CE electrodes showed that it retained half of its initial capacity after 50 000 charge–discharge cycles, demonstrating the excellent stability of PPY-CNXL supercapacitor electrode materials.

Graphical abstract: High total-electrode and mass-specific capacitance cellulose nanocrystal-polypyrrole nanocomposites for supercapacitors

About
Cited by
Related
Download options Please wait...

Supplementary files

Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C3RA41168K
Article type
Communication
Submitted
11 Mar 2013
Accepted
15 Apr 2013
First published
10 May 2013

RSC Adv., 2013,3, 9158-9162

Permissions

Request permissions

High total-electrode and mass-specific capacitance cellulose nanocrystal-polypyrrole nanocomposites for supercapacitors

S. Y. Liew, D. A. Walsh and W. Thielemans, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 9158 DOI: 10.1039/C3RA41168K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements