Titanium carbide nanocube core induced interfacial growth of crystalline polypyrrole/polyvinyl alcohol lamellar shell for wide-temperature range supercapacitors

This is the first investigation on electrically conducting polymers-based supercapacitor electrodes over a wide temperature range, from -18 degrees C to 60 degrees C. A high-performance supercapacitor electrode material consisting of TiC nanocube core and conformal crystalline polypyrrole (PPy)/poly-vinyl-alcohol (PVA) lamellar shell has been synthesized by heterogeneous nucleation-induced interfacial crystallization. PPy is induced to crystallize on the negatively charged TiC nanocube surfaces via strong interfacial interactions. In this organic-inorganic hybrid nanocomposite, the long chain PVA enables enhanced cycle life due to improved mechanical properties, and the TiC nanocube not only contributes to electron conduction, but also dictates the PPy morphology/crystallinity for maximizing the charging-discharging performance. The crystalline PPy/PAV layer on the TiC nanocube offers unprecedented high capacity (>350 F g(-1)-PPy at 300 mV s(-1) with Delta V = 1.6 V) and cycling stability in a temperature range from -18 degrees C to 60 degrees C. The presented hybrid-filler and interfacial crystallization strategies can be applied to the exploration of new-generation high-power conducting polymer-based supercapacitor materials. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.