Enhancing energy storage capacity of supercapacitors via constructing a porous PPy/carbon cloth electrode by a template-assisted method

Constructing a reasonable electrode structure to achieve high energy density, long cycle life, and excellent rate performance for supercapacitors through simple and mild preparation methods remains challenging. In this work, the hierarchical porous polypyrrole (PPy) with high pseudocapacitive activity and sufficient electrolyte ion transport channels is uniformly coated on carbon cloth (CC) fibers by an electrochemical deposition method with the help of nano-silica as the self-sacrificing template to construct the CC@PPy composite with an improved surface area and porosity. By optimizing the loading and porosity of the electroactive material through electrodeposition time, the specific capacitance of the CC@PPy electrode reached an impressive value of 670.2 F g−1. The as-fabricated asymmetric solid-state supercapacitor (ASSC) built with the optimized 3D porous CC@PPy electrode exhibited a specific capacitance of up to 142.5 F g−1 at 1.0 A g−1, superior rate capability, and outstanding cyclic stability (capacitance retention up to 90.3 % after 10,000 cycles). Furthermore, the ASSC achieved a high energy density of 64.1 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 900.0 W kg−1. These results offer valuable guidance for the design and preparation of high-performance flexible electric energy storage devices.