Effect of electrolytes on electrochemical properties of graphene sheet covered with polypyrrole thin layer

Graphene sheet (GS) was successfully covered with a polypyrrole (PPy) thin layer through in situ chemical oxidative polymerization of pyrrole monomers in aqueous solution by using GS as a support material and ferric trichloride as an oxidant. The resulting nanocomposite was studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and electrical measurements, including cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge/discharge experiment (GCD), and impedance spectroscopy (EIS). It has been found that the nanocomposite exhibited a typically curved and layer–like structure, and conformational change of PPy chains occurred due to the π–π stacking interaction between the graphitic structures in GS and aromatic rings of the PPy chains. More attention was paid to the effect of electrolytes on electrochemical properties of the nanocomposites, as expected, electrochemical performance was dependent on the nature of the electrolyte, and the neutral electrolytes containing alkali metal ions were found to be very suitable for GS/PPy nanocomposite. Compared with the pure PPy, the nanocomposite possessed larger specific capacitance and lower internal impedance, indicating that the nanocomposite can be a promising candidate as electrode material for supercapacitors.