Abstract
Pure natural cotton has flexible and foldable characteristics with a high response rate which makes it an excellent candidate for the development of low-cost electrodes for electrochemical supercapacitors. Here, a composite of cotton (C/P:P) with different ratios of conducting polymer, poly(3, 4-ethylene dioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), was developed through polymerization using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a physical cross-linker. A hydrogel electrolyte has been developed using natural polymer starch and sodium alginate. The fabricated supercapacitor utilizing the developed composite and the hydrogel electrolyte has been analyzed by employing different characterization techniques. The structural properties of pure and composite electrodes (C/P:P) were investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy; the surface morphology was elucidated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). Thermal properties were investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Sheet resistance was measured for the composite with different ratios of PEDOT:PSS in which 2.5 wt.% of PEDOT PSS showed the lowest sheet resistance of 1.22 omega/square. Electrochemical studies were carried out utilizing cyclic voltammetry and the composite cotton-based symmetric supercapacitor was found to achieve a specific capacitance of 296 F/g at 100 mA g(-1). The intrinsic properties of the symmetric composite cotton supercapacitors were also verified by operating a light-emitting diode (LED).