Effect of chemical exfoliation on the specific capacitance of MoS2 decorated conducting polymer electrodes for supercapacitor applications

The present communication introduces a modified high-performance supercapacitor electrode with chemically exfoliated MoS2@PANI nanocomposite as a solution for the upcoming energy needs. We put forward a chemical exfoliation route for increasing the effective surface area of hydrothermally synthesized MoS2, and effective encapsulation of a conducting polymer, polyaniline (PANI), was introduced via in-situ chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline monomer. The structural behaviors were systematically explored by X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and the surface characteristics were analyzed by Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area measurements. The effect of exfoliation on capacitive performance was analyzed by the electrochemical study of two material platforms, MoS2@PANI and MoS2 ex@PANI, in a weakly acidic medium of 1 M H3PO4. The unique structure of MoS2 ex@PANI nanocomposite maximizes the ionic contact between the exfoliated MoS2 and PANI with electrolyte, which synergistically combines the double-layer and pseudocapacitive behavior of the individual compounds, thereby improving the conductivity and energy storage performance. The binary exfoliated composite electrodes revealed an excellent specific capacitance of 277 F g(-1) at a scan rate of 5 mV s(-1) superior to that of the MoS2@PANI electrode. A symmetric supercapacitor device was successfully developed and achieved improved capacitance of 128 F g(-1) with impressive cyclic stability (98%) even after 15,000 cycles. The MoS2 ex@PANI nanocomposite becomes a future solution for existing supercapacitor electrodes for energy storage in lightweight wearable electronics.{GRAPHIACAL ABSTRACT}