Challenge between sequence presences of conductive additives on flexibility, dielectric and supercapacitance behaviors of nanofibrillated template of bacterial cellulose aerogels

The fabrication of flexible, freestanding, lightweight, renewable, low cost and also the high performance of novel supercapacitors is pivotal in electronic fields. In this work, two series of ternary bio-nanocomposite flexible aerogels based on bacterial cellulose (BC) as a template and containing silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and polyaniline (PANI) as conductive agents facilely fabricate using an in situ method, in which Ag and PANI embedded within BC matrix as sequences. Morphology of ternary aerogels reveals the core-shell and branch-grape microstructures for BC/Ag/PANI and BC/PANI/Ag samples, respectively. BET analysis exhibits that specific surface area of BC/Ag/PANI (145 m2 g−1) is higher than BC/PANI/Ag (130 m2 g−1) aerogel. Electrical conductivity measurements indicated that BC/Ag/PANI (1.25 S cm−1) possesses higher electrical conductivity than BC/PANI/Ag (0.00693 S cm−1) aerogels. The coexistence of PANI and Ag within BC texture, significantly altered the interfacial polarization and relaxation spectra of ternary system. A specific capacitance 357 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 associated with 83% cyclic stability over 2000 cycles is observed for BC/Ag/PANI, while BC/PANI/Ag showed specific capacitance of 232 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 as well as 74% capacitance retention. Furthermore, in symmetrical supercapacitor setup for BC/Ag/PANI, a high energy density of 34 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 459 Wh kg−1 is obtained. These findings indicated that BC/Ag/PANI aerogel as a flexible and lightweight electrode could be highly used in the field of electrical energy storage.