Synthesis of polyaniline/graphene/MoS2 nanocomposite for high performance supercapacitor electrode

Conducting polymers are usually good candidates for electrode materials of supercapacitors in spite of their lower cyclic stability, which can further be improved by combining with suitable nanofillers. In this work, we report the synthesis of nanocomposites of polyaniline (PANI), with equal weight% of graphene (G) and MoS2, prepared via in-situ oxidative polymerization of PANI, along with PANI-G binary nanocomposites. The morphological analysis confirms the formation of well-dispersed composite materials, and the ternary composite appears to be an interlayered structure of graphene and MoS2, encapsulating the PANI nanorods. As a result, the ternary composite exhibits an excellent supercapacitance behavior, suitable for energy storage applications as revealed by an enhanced cyclic stability. The ternary composite PANI-G-MoS2 symmetric electrode measurement exhibits a remarkably high specific capacitance (Cs, 142.30 F g−1) over binary composites under galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) cycles. The improved cyclic stability has contributed significantly in recovering the capacitance retention as high as 98.11% in comparison with pure PANI (∼40%) and binary composites (∼60–96%). Further, PANI-G-MoS2 symmetric electrode (viz., based on two electrode measurement) exhibits a high energy density (2.65 Wh kg−1) at a power density of 119.21 W kg−1, which is attributed to the high charge transport phenomenon occurs at the interfacial region between electrodes and electrolyte.