Vol.:(0123456789)
Polymer Bulletin
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-019-02850-8
1 3
ORIGINAL PAPER
The synthesis of rGO/RuO
2
, rGO/PANI, RuO
2
/PANI and rGO/
RuO
2
/PANI nanocomposites and their supercapacitors
Murat Ates
1
· Murat Yildirim
1
Received: 20 February 2019 / Revised: 25 April 2019 / Accepted: 17 June 2019
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract
In this work, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was obtained by chemical reduction
of graphene oxide (GO) using sodium borohydride (NaBH
4
). Four diferent nano-
composites rGO/ruthenium oxide (RuO
2
), rGO/polyaniline (PANI), RuO
2
/PANI and
rGO/RuO
2
/PANI were chemically synthesized. In addition, PANI-based nanocom-
posites were synthesized by in situ polymerization technique. Nanocomposites were
examined by diferent methods such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy–
attenuated transmission refectance, UV–Vis spectrophotometer, scanning electron
microscopy–energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, thermal analysis (TGA–DTA) and
transmission electron microscopy. TGA–DTA results show that the decomposition
of rGO/RuO
2
/PANI nanocomposite (27.2% at 788.8 °C) was less than that of rGO
(1% at 779.7 °C), which confrms the successful synthesis of nanocomposites. These
nanocomposites can be used in supercapacitor applications. Supercapacitor device
performances were taken by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic constant current
and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) via two-electrode confguration.
Ragone plots were drawn to observe energy and power densities of supercapacitor
devices. Stability tests were taken by CV method for 1000 cycles. A ternary rGO/
RuO
2
/PANI nanocomposite yields higher specifc capacitance as C
sp
= 723.09 F g
−1
than rGO/RuO
2
(C
sp
= 347.28 F g
−1
), rGO/PANI (C
sp
= 159.62 F g
−1
), RuO
2
/PANI
(C
sp
= 40.2 F g
−1
) and rGO (C
sp
= 37.5 F g
−1
) at 2 mV/s by CV method. A new elec-
trical circuit model of LR(C(R(CR))) was used to analyze EIS data for rGO, rGO/
PANI, rGO/RuO
2
, RuO
2
/PANI and rGO/RuO
2
/PANI nanocomposites. These nano-
composites demonstrate remarkable properties for use as electroactive materials for
supercapacitor applications.
* Murat Ates
mates@nku.edu.tr
http://www.atespolymer.org
http://mates-en.nku.edu.tr/
1
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Tekirdag Namik Kemal University,
Namik Kemal Mah. Campus Street, 59030 Tekirdag, Turkey