Research Progress on Preparation of Polyaniline Materials and Their Application in Supercapacitors

Abstract

With the rapid development of grid-connected renewable energy, portable electronic devices and flexible wearable devices, supercapacitors featuring high power density, fast charge-discharge performance and long cycle life have attracted extensive attention. As a typical conductive polymer, polyaniline (PANI) possesses advantages including easily available raw materials, mild synthesis conditions, tunable doping states and prominent pseudocapacitance contribution, and it serves as a key research subject for supercapacitor electrode materials. This paper reviews the preparation of polyaniline materials and their applications in supercapacitors. It first outlines the device configuration, conduction process and energy-storage mechanism of supercapacitors. Then it summarizes preparation approaches including chemical oxidative polymerization, electrochemical polymerization, in-situ composite synthesis, template/scaffold-assisted construction and doping functionalization, and compares the performance of polyaniline-based composite electrodes in terms of specific capacitance, energy density and cycling stability. Existing studies indicate that the construction of conductive scaffolds, pore channel regulation and interface stabilization can improve charge transport and ion diffusion of polyaniline. Nevertheless, volume variation during charge-discharge cycles and degradation of active layers remain critical bottlenecks restricting practical applications.