The Design of Flexible Polypyrrole Doped Polymeric Membrane Electrodes and Investigation of Their Electrochemical Behaviors for Use as Pseudocapacitors

Abstract

This study was related with the synthesis and investigation of the electrochemical behaviors of the electrodes coated pyrrole (Py) and thiophene (Th) on the polymeric membrane (PM). Polypyrrole (PPy) was synthesized by low-cost chemical oxidative polymerization method, and the flexible polymeric membrane electrodes (FPME) doped with the obtained polypyrrole were developed. These electrodes were synthesized via electrochemical polymerization, and also their electrochemical behaviors were analyzed by using cyclic voltammetry (CV). CV analysis results revealed that the polymeric units were strongly attached to the electrode surface and effectively facilitated chemical modification on the electrode surface. The innovative approach of this study was to obtain a membrane by adding of PPy synthesized by oxidative polymerization to alginate, a natural material, and to prove the use of this membrane as an electrode in the electrochemical measurements. Several analyses and tests were conducted to characterize the electrodes. According to Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) images, the (PME)s had smooth surface structures, with PM having the most homogeneous surface. The pore diameters were measured to be around 1.5 µm according to their SEM images. For capacitor performance, according to the calculation from CV measurements confirmed that the membranes could function at pseudocapacitor levels, with energy densities ranging from 3.7 to 5.4 Wh/g and power densities between 266.515 and 413.125 W/g. These findings suggest that the developed (PME)s have significant application potential in electrochemical energy storage systems, such as pseudocapacitors.