Polyaniline (PANI)-manganese dioxide (MnO2) nanocomposites as efficient electrode materials for supercapacitors

• Preparation and characterization of MnO 2 -PANI nanocomposites. • Comparative electrochemical analysis of PANI grafted and coated nanocomposites. • Superior performance of the PANI grafted nanocomposite with Csp 417 Fg −1 . Polyaniline (PANI) manganese dioxide (MnO 2 ) nanocomposites were prepared by polymer coating and grafting approaches. The nanocomposites were fully characterized by XRD, TEM, ATR-IR and TG analyses. The PANI-grafted MnO 2 nanocomposite exhibited a specific capacitance of 417F/g at scan rate 5 mV/s −1 . It showed the specific energy of 11.4 Wh/kg at specific power of 875 W/kg. Instead, the PANI-coated MnO 2 nanocomposite exhibited a specific capacitance of 271F/g at scan rate 5 mV/s −1 . It showed the specific energy of 7.2 Wh/kg at specific power of 280 W/kg. The comparative analysis clearly demonstrated the superior performance of the polymer grafted nanocomposite.