Synthesis of polyaniline/5-sulfosalicylic acid composite and it’s electrochemical properties

Here, we synthesize a composite of polyaniline and 5-sulfosalicylic acid (PANI-SSA) using a chemical oxidative polymerization method. The as-synthesized composite material was characterized using several physico-chemical and electrochemical techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge–discharge (GCD), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The as-synthesized PANI-SSA composite shows much higher capacity of 72 mAh g−1 than the pristine PANI (41 mAh g−1). The composite also shows better cyclic stability and retains capacity almost the same after 1000 galvanostatic charge/discharge cycles. This result demonstrates the importance of PANI-SSA as an electrode material for energy storage applications.