Supporting electrolyte enhanced supercapacitance of acetic acid doped reduced graphene oxide/nickel hydroxide/polyaniline nanocomposites

Abstract

The rapidly enhanced electrolytic intercalation bringing about 101 % higher energy storage in rGO, Ni(OH)<inf>2</inf> and PANI (GNP) nanocomposite in comparison with 1 M H<inf>2</inf>SO<inf>4</inf> is achieved using the 0.4 M CH<inf>3</inf>SO<inf>3</inf>H (MSA) as supporting electrolyte for 0.4 M H<inf>2</inf>SO<inf>4</inf> (SA). Ensuing the established fact of acid insoluble Ni(OH)<inf>2</inf> in our earlier study, the further work on Ni(OH)<inf>2</inf> containing composites in the presence of acid electroytes has proven its stability in MSA as well. The GNP exhibited increase in specific capacitance (C<inf>s</inf>) on increasing the cycles of energy storage and delivery in different acid electrolytes but the enhancement in the presence of MSA is higher. The superior results were achieved from the supercapacitor device containing GN51P (rGO 3.70 %: Ni(OH)<inf>2</inf> 51.86 %: PANI44.44 %) and SA + MSA, which are, C<inf>s</inf> of 381.67 F g−1, specific capacity (Q) of 458.01 C g−1, E of 76.33 W h kg−1 and a specific power of 3.3109 kW kg−1 at 1 A g−1. The GN51P exhibited increasing C<inf>s</inf> even after 10,000 cycles at 400 mV s−1. The real time applications of the GNP composites are also experimented satisfactorily. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd