Porous polyaniline arrays oriented on functionalized carbon cloth as binder-free electrode for flexible supercapacitors

Flexible supercapacitor (FSC), thanks to light weight, efficient power delivery and high safety, holds great potential in potable/wearable electronics, whose development would be accelerated by ideal electrode materials . Herein, we report a flexible binder-free electrode composed of polyaniline (PANI) nanofiber-lapped arrays in-situ grown on the molecular-modified carbon cloth (fCC) by a facile one-spot protocol. After optimization, PANI/fCC-2 electrode affords a high specific capacitance of 517.3 F g −1 at 1 A g −1 , benefited from highly pseudocapacitive PANI and open channels favorable for rapid ion/electron transfer. Using this novel electrode, flexible quasi-solid-state SC with PVA/H 2 SO 4 gel electrolyte displays a high energy density of 9.03 Wh kg −1 at a power density of 82.9 W kg −1 and is retained at 6.11 Wh kg −1 at 2784.3 W kg −1 , with excellent rate capability (97.4% capacitance retention from 0.5 to 20 A g −1 ) and good cycling stability (79.5% retention over 10,000 cycles). Besides, such four devices in series can light up a light-emitting diode (LED) indicator as a proof of concept in real applications. Our research would provide a promising avenue to develop flexible integrated electrode for next-generation high-performance devices.