Polydiacetylene-perylenediimide supercapacitors.

Organic supercapacitors have attracted interest as promising "green" and efficient components in energy storage applications. Here, we employed, for the first time, a polydiacetylene derivative coupled with reduced graphene oxide to generate an organic pseudocapacitive-based supercapacitor exhibiting excellent electrochemical properties. Specifically, diacetylene monomers were functionalized with perylenediimide (PDI), spontaneously forming elongated microfibers. Following polymerization via ultraviolet irradiation, the PDI-polydiacetylene microfibers were interspersed with reduced graphene oxide (rGO), generating porous electrode material exhibiting high surface area and facilitating efficient ion diffusion, both essential preconditions for supercapacitor applications. We show that PDI-polydiacetylene has an important role in enhancing the electrochemical properties as the supercapacitor electrodes. Precisely, besides stabilizing the microporous electrode organization, the delocalized pi electrons in both the PDI residues and conjugated network of the polydiacetylene contributed to significantly higher capacitance (specific capacitance of above 600 Fg -1 at 1 Ag -1 current density), longer discharge time, and high power density. We employed the PDI-polydiacetylene-rGO electrodes in a functional supercapacitor device.