Facile synthesis of highly processable and water dispersible polypyrrole and poly(3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene) microspheres for enhanced supercapacitive performance. (February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Yu; Turner, Anthony P.F.; Zhao, Maojun; Mak, Wing Cheung
• Is Part Of: European polymer journal. Volume 99(2018)
• Page Start: 332
• Page End: 339
• Publication Date: 2018-02
• Subjects: Energy materials -- Conducting polymers -- Microspheres interface -- Colloidal chemistry; Polymers -- Periodicals; Polymerization -- Periodicals; Polymères -- Périodiques; Polymérisation -- Périodiques; Polymerization; Polymers; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 547.705
• DOI: 10.1016/j.eurpolymj.2017.12.013
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0014-3057

Abstract

Graphical abstract: Conducting polymer microsphere building blocks for facile fabrication of hierarchical structured electrode with enhanced electrocapacitive performance. The enhanced capacitive properties is facilitate by the micro-structured morphology of the conducting polymer microsphere and space within the inter-microparticles network to promote ion diffusion and insertion process. The processable conducting polymer microspheres provide a convenience top-down approach for fabrication of printed electrode. Highlights: A universal and green method for the fabrication of polypyrrole microspheres (PPy-MSs) and poly (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene) microspheres (PEDOT-MSs). Both PPy-MSs and PEDOT-MSs show intact morphology and good water dispersibility. The microstructured PPy-MSs and PEDOT-MSs films exhibit enhanced electrocapacitive performance. Abstract: Much recent work has focused on improving the processibility and electrocapacitive performance of conducting polymer-based materials for energy related applications. The key mechanism of conducting polymers as supercapacitor materials is driven by the rapid charging and discharging processes that involve mass transport of the counter ions insertion/ejection within the polymer structure, where ion diffusion is usually the limiting step on the efficiency of the conducting polymer capacitor. Here, we report a facile method for the green fabrication of polypyrrole microspheres (PPy-MSs) and poly (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene) microspheres (PEDOT-MSs) with good processability, intact morphology and large active surface for enhanced ion interchange processes, without using surfactant and highly irritant or toxic organic solvents during the synthetic process. The structure and morphology of the PPy-MSs and PEDOT-MSs were characterized by means of SEM, EDX, TEM and FTIR. Both PPy-MSs and PEDOT-MSs showed intact microsphere structures with greatly improved water dispersity and processability. More importantly, facilated by the large active surface and inter-microsphere space for ions diffusion, both the PPy-MSs and PEDOT-MSs showed a signiciantly enhanced electrical capacitive performance of 242 F g −1 and 91.2 F g −1, repsectively (i.e. 10 and 1.51 times in specific capacitance than the randomly structured PPy and PEDOT). This innovative approach not only addresses fundamental issues in fabrication of high performance processable microstructured conducting polymers, but also makes progress in delivering water processable conducting polymers that could be potentially used for fabrication of printed electronic devices.