High‐Rate Polyaniline/Carbon‐Cloth Electrodes: Effect of Mass Loading on the Pseudocapacitive Performance

Abstract

Abstract Polyaniline/carbon‐cloth electrodes with various mass loadings of polyaniline are prepared for use as high‐rate charge/discharge pseudocapacitors. The dependence of the capacitance, energy, and power density on the polyaniline mass loading is studied in the current work to determine the operating power spectrum of the polyaniline/carbon‐cloth electrodes. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time that the polyaniline/carbon‐cloth electrode simultaneously possesses high values of the specific and areal characteristics. Moreover, we show that such high values of the specific power and energy were obtained with time constants in the range from 0.8 to 6.25 s, depending on the amount of active material used. It is determined that the maximum areal capacitance is obtained for the highest mass loading of polyaniline with a value of 2450 mF/cm 2 measured at 75 mA/cm 2 , corresponding to an areal energy density of 265 μWh/cm 2 and areal power density of 48 mW/cm 2 . On the other hand, the maximum specific capacitance is obtained for the lowest mass loading of polyaniline with a value of 1120 F/g measured at 28 A/g, corresponding to a specific energy of 147 Wh/kg and specific power of 19 kW/kg.