Preparation and Characterization of Polyaniline-Dodecyl Benzene Sulfonic Acid-Cadmium Oxide (PANI-DBSA-CdO) Composites: As an Electrode Material for Energy Storage Applications

Earlier we have reported PANI-CdO composite electrodes which exhibited excellent supercapacitive performance at lower concentration of dopant (CdO) but failed to perform at higher concentrations. It could be considered that the limited conductivity of PANI-CdO composites at higher concentrations of dopant CdO might be associated with its poor solubility and lower dispersion into the PANI matrix. Therefore, a surfactant like dodecyl benzene sulfonic acid (DBSA) has introduced for the protonation to make long chain PANI-CdO composites that might help to enhance their electrochemical performance. Therefore, PANI-DBSA, and PANI-DBSA-CdO nanocomposites with cadmium oxide (CdO) as a dopant have been synthesized using In-situ chemical polymerization route and characterized to be used as an electrode material for supercapacitive applications. The physical and chemical properties have investigated through XRD, FTIR, and SEM analysis. The electrical properties have estimated from the obtained IV curves while electrochemical properties are tested through (CV, GCD, and EIS-develop) analysis. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) and Galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) results of PANI-DBSA-CdO composites don’t exhibit any progress at higher concentrations of dopant CdO. However, PANI-DBSA composite electrode has exhibited a greater specific capacity of 569 F g ^− 1 , with maximum energy density of 12.3 Wh kg ^− 1, and a higher power density of 812 W kg ^− 1 at 8.33 A g ^− 1 current density as compared to rest of all the samples. It also retained more than 85% of its initial capacity after the 20,000th charge–discharge cycle. Highly achieved capacity, excellent reversibility, large (energy and power) densities, and lower (ohmic, charge transfer & diffusion) resistance, suggesting PANI-DBSA composite to be a useful supercapacitive electrode material.