A hydroquinone redox electrolyte for polyaniline/SnO2 supercapacitors

Abstract In order to achieve high specific capacitance of polyaniline/SnO 2 (PANI/SnO 2 ) supercapacitors, utilizing hydroquinone (HQ) as redox electrolyte for PANI/SnO 2 supercapacitors was reported. In this redox electrolyte, the specific capacitance was heightened by 356 F g −1 , reaching 857 F g −1 with a specific energy density of 116.6 Wh kg −1 at an applied current of 0.5 A g −1 . Long-term cycling experiments performed showed good stability with retention of the initial capacitance values of 81.2% after 2000 galvanostatic cycles. The remarkable results presented here illustrate that the HQ redox electrolyte was a facile and straight forward approach to improve the performances of PANI/SnO 2 supercapacitors.