Effect of Carbon Dots on Supercapacitor Performance of Carbon Nanohorn/Conducting Polymer Composites
Chia‐Chi Chang, Tesfaye Abebe Geleta, Toyoko Imae
Abstract
Abstract Conducting composites consisting of carbon nanohorn (CNH), carbon dots (C-dots) and polyaniline (PA) or polypyrrole (PP) have been synthesized via in-situ polymerization and evaluated for performance as electrode materials for supercapacitors. The addition of C-dots to composites of CNH and conducting polymer showed a superior influence on supercapacitance properties in comparison with composites without C-dots. Incidentally, the specific capacitance was 1206 F/g and 538 F/g at a scan rate of 5 mV/s for composites of CNH with PA and PP, respectively, with addition of C-dots. These values were 1.6 and 2.3 times higher than values for composites without C-dots. Moreover, composites with C-dots exhibited high capacitance retention (94 and 93%, respectively). Thus, these results indicate that the addition of C-dots to composites of CNH with conducting polymers provides a significant enhancing effect as promising electrode materials for energy storage devices with high capacitance and stability.