Grown of flower-like polyaniline nanosheet clusters on carbon cloth for enhanced electrochemical energy storage

Layered nanomaterials with hierarchically porous structure are reported to exhibit superior capacitive properties due to the facilitated electrolyte adsorption and migration process. In this work, polyaniline (PANI) nanosheet assembled flowers were successfully grown on carbon cloth (CC) through a simple repeated-deposition method. In this research, it is found that the affinity between the pre-loaded PANI and the new aniline monomer play an decisive role in the formation of product with nanosheet morphology. The typical hierarchically porous structure and the high redox activity of PANI endow CC/PANI4 with high specific capacitances of 1421.9 mF cm−2 (643.4 F g−1) at 1 mA cm−2 and 1101.2 mF cm−2 (498.3 F g−1) at 50 mA cm−2 in three-electrode system, as well as a stable charge-discharge behavior with 68.75% capacitance retention after 5000 cyclic tests. This research provides a new strategy for the construction of PANI with optimized sheet-assembled structures and also high electrochemical performances on flexible substrates.