Synthesis of Polypyrrole-coated NiO/Ni(OH)2 Hybrid Flowers Composite by Pulse Electro-polymerization for supercapacitor with Improved Electrochemical Capacitance

Abstract

This work describes a novel strategy to synthesize polypyrrole-coated NiO/α-Ni(OH)2 hybrid flower with an improved capacitance performance for supercapacitor. Polypyrrole nanoparticles with a size of 80-100 nm were prepared by a pulse electro-polymerization and uniformly embedded into the petal gap of the self-assembled NiO/α-Ni(OH)2 hybrid flower. Due to the enhancement of the electrical conductivity and the improvement of electrochemical pseudo-capacitance, the as-synthesized polypyrrole-coated NiO/α-Ni(OH)2 hybrid flower composite showed a high reversible specific capacity of 359 F g-1 at 5 A g-1 in 2 M KOH electrolyte in a potential range of 0 - 0.45 V. Benefiting from the unique electro-polymerization design, the obtained hybrid flower composite demonstrated excellent capacitive performance and cycling stability after 1000 cycles, demonstrating the promising application as a high-performance pseudocapacitive material for supercapacitors.