Donor–Acceptor Polymers for Electrochemical Supercapacitors: Synthesis, Testing, and Theory

Donor–acceptor polymers can store both a positive and negative charge allowing them to function as both the positive and negative charge storage material in a supercapacitor device, however few have been explored for this application. Here, we describe the synthesis of several donor–acceptor polymers and their electrodeposited polymer electrodes. We use differing molecular structures to examine the effect of electron acceptor concentration and show that device stability can be improved significantly by increasing the acceptor concentration. Further, we provide computational insight into the important chemical requirements for achieving even higher performance supercapacitors based on donor–acceptor conjugated polymers. Supercapacitor devices with specific energy and specific power as high as 11 Wh kg–1 (at 0.5 A g–1) and 20 kW kg–1 (at 50 A g–1 with an energy of 3.6 Wh kg–1) are reported, which are some of the highest values achieved to date.