Amphiphilic ligand exchange reaction-induced supercapacitor electrodes with high volumetric and scalable areal capacitances

We introduce high-performance supercapacitor electrodes with ternary components prepared from consecutive amphiphilic ligand-exchange-based layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly among amine-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (NH2-MWCNTs) in alcohol, oleic acid-stabilized Fe3O4 nanoparticles (OA-Fe3O4 NPs) in toluene, and semiconducting polymers (PEDOT:PSS) in water. The periodic insertion of semiconducting polymers within the (OA-Fe3O4 NP/NH2-MWCNT)n multilayer-coated indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode enhanced the volumetric and areal capacitances up to 408 ± 4 F cm−3 and 8.79 ± 0.06 mF cm−2 at 5 mV s−1, respectively, allowing excellent cycling stability (98.8% of the initial capacitance after 5000 cycles) and good rate capability. These values were higher than those of the OA-Fe3O4 NP/NH2-MWCNT multilayered electrode without semiconducting polymer linkers (volumetric capacitance ∼241 ± 4 F cm−3 and areal capacitance ∼1.95 ± 0.03 mF cm−2) at the same scan rate. Furthermore, when the asymmetric supercapacitor cells (ASCs) were prepared using OA-Fe3O4 NP- and OA-MnO NP-based ternary component electrodes, they displayed high volumetric energy (0.36 mW h cm−3) and power densities (820 mW cm−3).