Enhanced Adsorptive Properties and Pseudocapacitance of Flexible Polyaniline-Activated Carbon Cloth Composites Synthesized Electrochemically in a Filter-Press Cell

Electrochemical polymerization is known to be a suitable route to obtain conducting polymer-carbon composites uniformly covering the carbon support. In this work, we report the application of a filter-press electrochemical cell to polymerize polyaniline (PAni) on the surface of large-sized activated carbon cloth (ACC) by simple galvanostatic electropolymerization of an aniline-containing H2SO4 electrolyte. Flexible composites with different PAni loadings were synthesized by controlling the treatment time and characterized by means of Scanning Electron microscopy (SEM), X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), physical adsorption of gases, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), cyclic voltammetry and direct current (DC) conductivity measurements. PAni grows first as a thin film mostly deposited inside ACC micro- and mesoporosity. At prolonged electropolymerization time, the amount of deposited PAni rises sharply to form a brittle and porous, thick coating of nanofibrous or nanowire-shaped structures. Composites with low-loading PAni thin films show enhanced specific capacitance, lower sheet resistance and faster adsorption kinetics of Acid Red 27. Instead, thick nanofibrous coatings have a deleterious effect, which is attributed to a dramatic decrease in the specific surface area caused by strong pore blockage and to the occurrence of contact electrical resistance. Our results demonstrate that mass-production restrictions often claimed for electropolymerization can be easily overcome.