Electrochemical Investigation of Polypyrrole/Nd2O3 Nanocomposite as High Performance Supercapacitor Material on Mild Steel Substrate
Fereshteh Abdollahi, M. Shahidi, Mohammad Mehdi Foroughi, Maryam Kazemipour
Abstract
The PPy films prepared on the mild steel substrate in the absence of the non-conductive iron(II) oxalate layer can be used as the effective electrodes for electrochemical supercapacitors. This study introduces a nanocomposite material for electrochemical redox capacitors, which has advantages, such as long life cycle and stability in an aqueous electrolyte. A polypyrrole/Nd 2 O 3 thin film electrode was synthesized electrochemically as an electrochemical supercapacitor. The supercapacitive performance of the PPy/Nd 2 O 3 coated electrode was investigated in 0.1 M H 2 SO 4 solution using cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge-discharge and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. The calculated specific capacitance of the PPy and PPy/Nd 2 O 3 electrodes using the CV method was 119 and 259 F.g -1 , respectively. The PPy/Nd 2 O 3 nanocomposite as a capacitor material has shown some advantages such as long life cycle and stability in an aqueous electrolyte. The retention of capacitance after 3000 cycles was about 88% of the initial capacitance at the current density of 1 A.g -1 . According to EIS data, the supercapacitor using PPy/Nd 2 O 3 nanocomposite material on mild steel substrate has high specific capacitance of 268 F.g -1 compared with 125 F.g -1 for PPy coating.