Alternate layer by layered self assembly of conjugated and unconjugated Salen based nanowires as capacitive pseudo supercapacitor

Abstract

A novel electrosynthetic method has been introduced based on alternate layer-by-layered self-assembly of conjugated/unconjugated Salen-based nanowires as a capacitive pseudo-supercapacitor. For this purpose, a three-electrode system consisted of a glassy carbon (GC), Ag/AgCl (Sat’d Cl−) and a Pt rod as working, reference, and counter electrodes, respectively. The electrolyte included the same molar concentration (0.040 mol L−1) of each Salen monomer (as initial precursor), and KCl solution (as supporting electrolyte), besides using KOH solution (0.01 mol L−1, as basic-controlling reagent) inside acetone/water (4:1, V/V) as a solvent. The formation of this self-assembly nanowire was attributed to the control of the electrical conductivity of this polymer during formation of an organometallic complex with K+ as responsible complex forming agent. This novel nanowire then played role as a capacitive pseudo-supercapacitor. Based on the chrono—potentiometry, reproducible charge/discharge process for at least 5000 cycles was observed at a potential between − 2.00 and + 1.75 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). The capacity behavior of the polymer was also evidenced using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. This synthesized polymeric nanowire was adopted as the acceptable pseudo-supercapacitor with real capacity equals to 3110 ± 6 (n = 3) C g−1. This study was considered as the first report at which the self—assembly of organometallic compounds as an efficient pseudo—supercapacitor was introduced.

Nanoscale self-assembly: concepts, applications and challenges

“…Semiconductor nanowires with one-dimensional geometry are envisioned to be utilized in future device applications to overcome the bottle necks of conventional device fabrication techniques. The semiconductor nanowires are highly suitable for applications such as thin-film devices [368], FETs and integrated circuits (ICs) [369][370][371], photodetectors [372,373], photovoltaics [368,374], thermoelectrics [375,376], electrochemical batteries [377,378], and supercapacitors [379].…”

Effect of Polypyrrole on the Capacitance Enhancement of the Spherical ZnS–ZnO/g-C3N4 Nanocomposite for Supercapacitor Applications

“…The carbon electrodes did not serve the required purpose and did not meet the market requirements due to their rather low energy density, this is considered a major drawback, so we nd that researchers are looking for noncarbon electrode materials such as electrodes with Faraday capacitance. They also expect in the future to produce capacitors with a very large capacity (pseudo capacitors) [7][8][9].…”

Highly Uniform Multi-Layers Reduced Graphene Oxide/Poly-2-aminobenzene-1-thiol Nanocomposite as a Promising Two Electrode Symmetric Supercapacitor under the Effect of Absence and Presence of Porous-Sphere Polypyrrole Nanomaterial

“…Polymer nanomaterials represent a novel and great choice for supercapacitors. Conductive polymers such as (polythiophene, polypyrrole, polyaniline and its derivatives) are considered promising materials for charge storage instead of other oxide or sulfide materials [ 18 , 19 ]. Hat et al [ 20 ] studied the incorporation of carbon materials with polymer materials and they achieved C S of 0.03 F/cm −2 .…”