Asymmetric Aqueous Supercapacitor Based on p- and n-Type Conducting Polymers

We demonstrated an asymmetric aqueous supercapacitor made of p- and n-type conducting polymer electrodes. We used the high electron affinity (EA) n-type polymer poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline) (BBL) as the anode conducting material, and the low ionization potential (IP) p-type polar polythiophene p(g(4)2T-T) as the cathode material. EA(BBL) matches IPp(g42T-T), enabling the fabrication of all-organic asymmetric p/n-supercapacitors that function in aqueous electrolytes. The devices operate in a voltage window up to 1 V, yielding areal capacitances of 90 mF cm(-2) and specific capacitances of 33 F g(-1) as well as excellent cycling stability with almost 100% capacitance retention over 10 000 cycles.
Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council; Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research; Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; AForsk; VINNOVA; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at LinkOping University [SFO-Mat-LiU 2009 00971]; Finnish Cultural Foundation