Preparation of carbon dots decorated graphene/polyaniline composites by supramolecular in-situ self-assembly for high-performance supercapacitors

Abstract

Abstract Supramolecular in-situ self-assembly is achieved to prepare carbon nanodots decorated graphene/polyaniline composites by adding β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) as the bonding agent in this work. With its unique structure, β-CD can form a supramolecular system with graphene oxide layers, generating the inclusion compound with aniline monomers, which makes the in-situ polymerization of polyaniline on the surface of graphene oxide. In the hydrothermal process, β-CD is carbonized to carbon nanodots anchored on the surface of reduced graphene oxide. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images show that the prepared reduced graphene oxide/carbon nanodots/polyaniline (RGO@CN/PANI) nanocomposites exhibit the micro morphology of a regular polyaniline particle array on the surface of graphene layers. The electrochemical tests demonstrate that the RGO@CN/PANI nanocomposites exhibit high specific capacitance (up to 871.8\u202fF\u202fg−1 at 0.2A g−1), low charge transfer resistance (Rct), and presentable cycling performance (72% capacitance retention after 10000 cycles), indicating the satisfied performance for supercapacitors. The promising performance of RGO@CN/PANI can be attributed to the synergistic effect of RGO, carbon nanodots and PANI, as well as the regular microstructure in which the effective reaction area of polyaniline is increased and the rapid ion transport channel is provided.