Preparation of Copper Doped Conducting Polymers and Their Supercapacitor Applications

Abstract

In this work, copper doped polyaniline and polypyrrole based materials were synthesized by in situ chemical synthesis method using of copper salt as oxidant for the first time in the literature. Prepared materials were characterized by using of microscopic, spectroscopic, and thermal methods. Doping of polyaniline and polypyrrole in the form of Cu(II) ions and Cu-N were confirmed by the analyses of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The interaction mechanisms of copper and polyaniline and polypyrrole were discussed in the given work. Morphology of the copper doped conducting polymers were characterized by using of scanning electron microscopy. Particle size distribution of the prepared powders were in micron scale from 60 to 478 μm. Then, prepared copper doped conducting polymers were used as electrode materials of asymmetric type supercapacitors in 1.0 M sulfuric acid and 1.0 M sodium sulfate. The highest areal capacitance was determined as 185 mF.cm−2 at 5 mV.s−1 in copper doped polypyrrole prepared 0.4 M pyrrole, 0.5 M CuCl2 and 0.2 M HCl including medium. Here, copper doping of the conducting polymers increased capacitive properties of these materials.