High energy and durable PANI, CuO and ZnO nanocomposites for aqueous/organic supercapacitors and their H+/NH+4 ions co-intercalation

Ternary composite of PANI, CuO and ZnO in its standardized weight composition of PANI54.55%:CuO36.36%:ZnO9.09% (PCZ9) was synthesized by in-situ single-step chemical method to study the supercapacitance of it and its binary composites. An aqueous supercapacitor cell of PCZ9 provided specific energy ( E ) higher than that of vanadium flow batteries and as close as to that of Pb-acid batteries, which is 27 W h kg −1 with the specific power ( P ) of 0.6 kW kg −1 at 1 A g −1 , mainly inflicted by H + / \({NH}_{4}^{+}\) ions co-intercalation/de-intercalation. While, an organic asymmetric supercapacitor cell made up of an binary composite of PCZ9, which is CuO80%:ZnO20% (CZ) provided E higher than that of Pb-acid batteries, Ni–Cd batteries, Ni-MH batteries, Na-metal chloride batteries and Na-S batteries, which is 71 W h kg −1 with the P of 0.232 kW kg −1 at 0.1 A g −1 . Most importantly, the organic asymmetric supercapacitor continued to provide higher E up to the current density of 2 A g −1 , as a trait of its excellent rate capability. In addition, both the aqueous symmetric and organic asymmetric supercapacitors exhibited promising durability by retaining 58.11 and ~ 75% of their initial energy up to 5000 cycles and 2500 cycles , respectively, when subjected to durability test at 0.4 V s −1 and 1 A g −1 (at different temperatures), respectively. The high E of the aqueous symmetric supercapacitor cell of PCZ9 was demonstrated by making it to exhibit its power backup ability, when, the PCZ9 symmetrice cell provided 1 min. and 30 sec. of power backup for 1 min. of charging using the 1.5 V AA battery of Duracell, establishing its high energy character.