Síntese e caracterização de compósitos de polianilina e óxido de grafeno para aplicação em supercapacitores

Abstract

One of the major problems in modern society is related to the energy demand and its storage as well as the environmental impact the nowadays technologies present when degraded. One of the types of electrochemical supercapacitors works based on the storage of charge faradaicly in the double layer formed between two electrodes. Considering this principle, the most important issues in developing such device are the capacitive material and the morphological structures of the electrodes. Conjugated polymers such as polyaniline (PANI) has been showing great potential in this field due to its low manufacture cost, its simple composition, high specific capacitance, possibility of being flexible, and showing many possible molecular and morphological structures. Graphene Oxide (GO), on the other hand, is a promising material for the construction of such devices due to its rich surface chemistry and unique two-dimensional structure, besides its possibility of being synthesized from the waste, such as those of some kinds of dead batteries electrodes, which can decrease the disposition of such waste on the environment. In this work, composites of PANI/GO were synthesized through the oxidative polymerization of aniline in suspension of GO. The resulting products were characterized through Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), UV-VIS Spectrophotometry, X ray Diffractometry (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The materials showed interesting optical, electronic and structural properties, which could prove the composite synthesis although the electrochemical characterization has not shown good results, leading to the need of later studies. The research was developed in the Optoelectronic Applied Polymers Laboratory in UTFPR (LaPOE-UTFPR), and the characterizations in the Chemical Analysis Multiuser Lab in UTFPR (LAMAQ-UTFPR) and in the Material Characterization Multiuser Center in UTFPR (CMCM-UTFPR) and in Physics Institute of São Carls (IFSC/USP).