Crosslinked polyaniline was synthesized via chemical oxidative copolymerization to achieve improved electrochemical performance.

The poor cyclic stability of polyaniline restricts its application as an electrode material for supercapacitors, due to the volume changes during the long charge/discharge process.

No abstract

A conception of “waste from the power should be used for the power” was established for sustainable energy development in the present work. Series of MnO2/graphene nanocomposites have been prepared via a facile physical mixing method as the electrode materials for supercapacitors with the spent battery powder (SBP) as raw material, which was obtained from the spent Zn-MnO2 acidic dry batteries via simple processing. The structure and morphology of the resulting composites were characterized by FT-IR, Raman, XRD, TEM, and SEM. The electrochemical tests showed that the as-obtained SBP had low impedance and excellent cyclic stability of retaining 100% of its initial capacitance after 1000 cycles. After the incorporation of the carbon substrates (graphene oxide (GO) or reduced graphene oxide (rGO)), the capacitance was enhanced more than 2 times the original SBP (66 F/g), which can be attributed to the synergistic effect of the carbon materials and the metal oxide. The present work would lead to new insight into the recycling of waste batteries.