Graphene – Polyaniline nanocomposite treated with microwave as a new supercapacitor electrode and its structural, electrochemical properties

Development of sustainable and renewable energy devices has gained more demand due to the growing global energy consumption along with depletioning of fossil fuel.Supercapacitor is a novel energy storage device that fills the gap between capacitors and batteries.It has attracted more researchers due to its power density and cyclic life.Supercapacitors are classified into two broad categories based on the energy storage mechanism namely Electric Double Layer Capacitor (EDLC), which is non-faradaic process and pseudocapacitor.The important factors affecting the performance of supercapacitors are the electrode materials and electrolyte [1].The researches about supercapacitor mainly concentrate on the electrode materials such as carbon materials, metal oxides and conducting polymers.Other than CNT and carbon nanofiber, graphene and its composite materials have been studied as electrode materials.Graphene based materials possesses better electrochemical property than CNT.Direct application of pseudocapacitors in supercapacitor is restricted due to the lower cycle life.Among the different conducting polymers, polyaniline (PANI) is most promising candidate for its low cost, easy synthesis and adjustable electrical conductivity.Polyaniline has been used to fabricate composites with graphene for supercapacitor electrodes due to its environmental stability.This makes the combination of carbon materials and conducting polymers, which lead to the improvement in electrochemical supercapacitor.Graphene oxide/MnO 2 [2-3], Graphene /Fe 2 O 3 [4], Graphene/Polypyrrole [5-7], Graphene/CNT in Polypyrrole [8] and Graphene/Polyaniline [9][10][11] were the major electrode material used by researcher in supercapacitor.Graphene possesses many remarkable properties such as high surface area, electrical conductivity, large double layer capacitance and excellent mechanical strength.Existence of pseudocapacitance generated