Mechanochemically synthesized NiCo2O4/Vulcan/PANI nanocomposite and investigation of its electrochemical behavior as a supercapacitor

• Main Authors: Adli, Reza Ghaffari, Kianvash, Abbas, Hossein, Mir Ghasem, Hajalilou, Abdollah, Abouzari-Lotf, Ebrahim
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. 2018
• Subjects: T Technology (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/84357/; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceramint.2018.07.279
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Wet-mechanical alloying was used to synthesize NiCo2O4 (Ni-Co) nanoparticles. XRD results showed that single phase nanoparticles were formed after 1 h of milling and a minimum crystallite size of 3 nm was obtained for 3 h-milled sample. The 3-h-milled sample was mechanically alloyed with Vulcan (Vu) to fabricate NiCo2O4/Vulcan (Ni-Co/Vu). The Ni-Co/Vu sample was thoroughly mixed with aniline (ANI), and the mixture was then polymerized to polyaniline (PANI). The microscopic evaluations showed the change in shape of Ni-Co particles from spherical to worm-liked after the polymerization process. Their structure was evaluated using FT-IR and Raman spectroscopies. The electrochemical studies through cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronopotentiometry (CP) showed the highest capacitance for the 3-h-milled Ni-Co, in comparison with other milled samples. The capacitance of 341 F g−1 of the 3-h-milled sample, was enhanced to 455 and 644 F g−1, upon introducing Vu and Vu/ PANI, respectively.