Flexible carbon cloth based polypyrrole for an electrochemical supercapacitor

Making use of ferric chloride or ammonium persulfate as oxidant, pyrrole was polymerized on the surface of flexible carbon cloth. The composite samples were characterized by scanning and transmission electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, fourier transform infrared spectra, cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge–discharge techniques. With other reaction conditions the same, when different oxidant was used, different morphology of polypyrrole was obtained on the surface of carbon cloth. Through comparing the electrochemical properties of the two products, carbon cloth electrode modified by polypyrrole with superior performance was obtained using ferric chloride as oxidant. The electrochemical measurements showed that the modified carbon cloth electrode with superior performance had a wide working potential window, a high specific capacitance of 603 F g−1 and excellent cycle stability at a discharge current density of 1 A g−1.