Electrochemical Studies of Conducting Polymer and Activated Carbon-Based Vanadium Substituted Polyoxometalates Hybrid Electrode Materials for Energy Applications

Abstract

In the modern world, both the energy crisis and environmental degradation are serious issues. This is not just because the supply of fossil fuels, the major energy source, will run out in the near future but also because the combustion of fossil fuels pollutes the environment, particularly through the release of carbon dioxide and harmful pollutants. However, due to the unpredictability and intermittent nature of some renewable energies, such as wind and solar power, energy storage plays a noteworthy part in developing sustainable energy production systems. Batteries of all different types, including Ni/MH, Pb/PbO2, and lithium-ion batteries, are examples of devices that are utilized to store electric energy and can deliver a high energy density. However, most batteries suffer from sluggish power delivery or absorption, so they cannot fulfill the demand for faster and higher-power energy. In this particular instance, a supercapacitor was developed to store and release energy with a high-rate capability. Because of its high-rate capability has been perfectly adapted to supply the electricity required by electric vehicles, tramways, diesel engine starting, wind turbines, computers, lasers, cranes, etc. In this study, we studied the influence of nanocomposites based on polyoxometalates (POMs) to enhance the performance of various supercapacitor devices. POMs are a kind of polyanionic molecular assemblies based on high-valent transition metal (Mo, V, W) oxide with large libraries of polynuclear metal oxygen clusters known for their strong negative charge, customizable sizes (usually on the nanometer to micrometer scale) and vast structural variation. Rapid, reversible multielectron redox conversions have been investigated in several fields, including pseudocapacitors. Researchers discovered that the synergistic effect between the elements successfully delivers higher device performance for energy storage applications.