Novel carbon nanofibers/thionickel ferrite/polyaniline (CNF/NiFe2S4/PANI) ternary nanocomposite for high performance supercapacitor

Abstract We present the study on synthesis of novel ternary nanocomposite CNF/NiFe2S4/PANI consisting of carbon nanofibers (CNF), thionickel ferrite (NiFe2S4) and polyaniline (PANI) by in-situ polymerization of monomer aniline in the presence of electrospun CNF/NiFe2S4 for high performance supercapacitor application. The as-synthesized binary CNF/NiFe2S4 and ternary CNF/NiFe2S4/PANI nanocomposites were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-rays spectroscopy (EDX) for morphological and elemental composition, x-ray diffraction (XRD) for structural and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) for thermal stability. The electrochemical performance of as-synthesized pure CNF, PANI, binary CNF/NiFe2S4 and ternary CNF/NiFe2S4/PANI nanocomposites was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The maximum specific capacitance was found to be 645 Fg-1 for ternary CNF/NiFe2S4/PANI nanocomposite at 1 Ag-1 current density with good capacitance retention capability and better cycling stability up to 5000 cycles. Ternary CNF/NiFe2S4/PANI nanocomposites would be the potential candidates for high performance supercapacitor electrodes due to synergistic combination of electric double layer capacitance from CNF and pseudo capacitance from NiFe2S4 and PANI.