Electrochemical self-assembly of nano-polyaniline film by forced convection and its capacitive performance

At present, an in situ synthesis of a conductive polyaniline (PANI) film via self-assembly is particularly of great interest in the supercapacitor field. Herein, we report the discovery a nanostructuring process for PANI electrochemical self-assembly through a forced convection method. It was observed that the morphology and structure of PANI films at the nanometer scale could be controlled by varying the rotation speed of the disk electrode during the electropolymerization process. On increasing the rotation speed from 0 rpm to 1000 rpm, the growth of PANI films successively changes from the nanorods composed porous films to the nanoparticles (diameter of 50 nm) composed dense films. We have also demonstrated the efficient electrochemical properties of the electrochemically assembled nano-PANI film-based electrodes at a rotation speed of 100 rpm, which showed the highest capacitance of 700.50 F g(-1) at a current density of 1 A g(-1) and good cycle stability after 1000 cycles.