Electrodeposition of polyaniline on reduced graphene oxide/cotton yarn with tunable electrochemical performance for flexible textile supercapacitors

Abstract

Abstract Graphene/cotton fibres, an all-organic and all-textile combination, show significant promise in the realm of wearable energy storage by reason of their light weight, low cost, porous structure, and exceptional integration ability into wearable systems. However, the use of eco-unfriendly reductants and limited specific capacity caused by a standalone electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) hindered their application. Herein, an environmentally friendly and rapid hydrothermal-electrodeposition method was proposed to fabricate cotton yarns wrapped with polyaniline (PANI) decorated reduced graphene oxide (rGO) without using any chemical reductants and oxidants. The PANI/rGO/cotton (PRC) yarn demonstrated a tunable energy storage capacity through the regulated aniline content in electrolyte and current sweep during the electrodeposition. The PRC yarn electrode exhibits a hierarchical porous conductive layer, tightly bound heterogeneous interface, and synergistic energy storage contribution and then exhibits a compelling capacitance of 81.2 mF cm−1 at 0.2 mA cm−1. The yarn supercapacitor based on PRC electrode shows a good capacitance (19.8 mF cm−1 at 0.08 mA cm−1), excellent energy-power density (2.7 μWh cm−1 at 40 μW cm−1), and great capacitance retention (83% after 8000 cycles). This environmentally friendly synthesis of PANI/rGO/ cotton yarns brings new insights into the development of textile-based wearable energy application.