Recent Advances in the Synthesis of Conjugated Polymers for Supercapacitors

Abstract

Conjugated polymers have attracted growing attention for versatile applications in energy storage due to their potential benefits including low-cost processing, molecular tunability, environmental benignity, and high mechanical flexibility. In particular, polymer-based organic electrode materials have shown significant progress in supercapacitor (SC) applications with superior electrochemical behaviors. The performances of SCs are closely related to the intrinsic characteristics of different polymers in the nanoscale and the morphological features of the polymer-based electrode materials obtained by different fabrication techniques in the macroscale. This review summarizes the design and synthesis of both p-type and n-type conjugated polymers, highlighting the pros and cons of three synthesis techniques: electrochemical polymerization, chemical polymerization, and in situ polymerization. The performances of conjugated polymers in SCs, their cycling stabilities, and structure-performance relationships are discussed. Moreover, the existing challenges and future directions of polymer-based SCs are considered with respect to energy density, stability, and large-scale production to promote commercialization.