One-Step Electrofabrication of Reduced Graphene Oxide/Poly( <i>N</i> -methylthionine) Composite Film for High Performance Supercapacitors
Zhengyang Gan, Nannan Song, Hui Zhang, Zhen Ma, Yinzhu Wang, Chuanxiang Chen
Abstract
Graphene based conducting polymer composites have demonstrated remarkable potential in supercapacitors. Here we develop a facile one-step cyclic voltammetric codeposition method for the fabrication of a reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/conducting redox polymer composite film on a graphite paper (GP) substrate using graphene oxide (GO) and a redox dye N -methylthionine (NMTh) as precursors. The morphology, composition, and structure of the composite film were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The resulting composite film has a layered and encapsulated microstructure, large specific area, high electrical conductivity, and fast reversible redox activity. The as-prepared rGO/polymeric redox dye composite film shows high specific capacitances of 500 and 400 F g –1 at 0.5 and 10 A g –1 current densities, respectively, with a retention life of up to 93.0% over 1000 charge/discharge cycles at 0.5 A g –1 . This coelectrodeposition may provide a promising method for the fabrication of graphene/other conducting redox polymer composites for energy storage application.