Cellulose carbon aerogel/PPy composites for high-performance supercapacitor

Energy storage and conversion systems have recently attracted great interest in application of various electronic devices. Conductive polymers are promising pseudocapacitive materials for supercapacitors due to their low cost, low environmental impact, high pseudo capacitance, and ease of fabrication. However, the poor cycling stability limits their application. Here, we use cellulose as a carbon precursor to prepare a hierarchical porous carbon aerogel as a support for conductive polymer polypyrrole (PPy). The hierarchical porous architecture not only enables the efficient penetration and uniform loading of PPy throughout the carbon network, but also ensures a rapid transfer of electrolytes and the high accessibility of PPy. The as-prepared hybrid shows a high specific capacitance of 387.6 F g−1 (0.5 A g−1 in 1.0 M H2SO4) and excellent cycling stability (92.6% capacitance retention after 10,000 cycles). This work provides an effective method to sustainably fabricate porous composite electrodes from renewable cellulose for supercapacitor.