Development of new supercapacitor electrodes based on carbon nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are essentially a mesoporous material with very limited microporosity, hence, they supply only moderate capacitance values. After KOH activation their capacitance values increase significantly from 15 F/g to ca. 100 F/g. CNTs are especially adapted as component of supercapacitor electrodes due to their exceptional conducting and mechanical properties. They play a perfect role of backbone for materials with pseudocapacitance properties. In this work a profitable role of nanotubes in nanocomposites with polypyrrole and polyaniline is demonstrated. High capacitance values from 200 to 360 F/g were obtained for such composites with a good cycling behavior, however, strongly affected by the operating voltage range of supercapacitor.