Abstract:

A method for preparing a graphene oxide/polyaniline (GO/PANI) composite electrode was developed to investigate the effect of GO doped in PANI. PANI was first prepared by the polymerisation of aniline and then dedoped by NH₄OH to form emeraldine base (EB). The dedoped PANI and as-prepared GO were dissolved in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) to generate a homogeneous dispersion. The GO/PANI composites were redoped in HCl before use as electrode materials. These composites were characterised by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV–vis adsorption spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and electrochemical measurements. The GO/PANI composite electrode (containing 2.5% GO) has an initial gravimetric capacitance of 896 F g⁻¹ at a scan rate of 5 mV s⁻¹ and a retention life of 51% after 500 cycles, which is an improvement over that of pure PANI (23%). The results show that the synergy of GO and PANI attributes to the good electrochemical performance of the GO/PANI composite electrode.

Key words:

Electrical properties, Carbon film, Capacitance, Materials synthesis