Paper based pencil drawn multilayer graphene-polyaniline nanofiber electrodes for all-solid-state symmetric supercapacitors with enhanced cyclic stabilities

Graphitic layer of carbon has been deposited on the surface of cellulose paper by simple pencil drawing approach. The edges of exfoliated multilayer graphene sheets formed during pencil drawing on the rough paper surface causes the enhancement of electrochemical capacitance. One step chemical polymerization technique has been adopted to fabricate polyaniline nanofibers on hydrophobic pencil drawn graphitic layer on the cellulose paper. These polyaniline coated pencil drawn paper electrodes were used to fabricate all-solid-state symmetric supercpapcitors with superior performance in comparison to similar pencil drawn paper electrodes without polyaniline. All-solid-state symmetric supercapacitor with paper based multilayer graphene-polyaniline nanofiber electrodes exhibits specific capacitance of 28.37 F g−1, areal capacitance of 93.64 mF cm−2, energy density of 8.32 µW h cm−2, and power density of 39.97 µW cm−2. It also shows excellent cyclic stability with initial increment to a maximum value and then decrease to 91.5 % of the maximum value after 5000 cycles. It is interesting to note that it retains 134.28 % of initial areal capacitance after 5000 cycles.