Effect of waste cellulose fibres on the charge storage capacity of polypyrrole and graphene/polypyrrole electrodes for supercapacitor application

This paper explores the possibility of dealing with two major challenges of the contemporary world, i.e., waste management and storage of energy. This study presents the extraction and application of cellulose (from waste paper) based composites for supercapacitor electrodes with a view to mitigate the energy crisis. In situ polymerization is used for the synthesis of benign composites comprising cellulose, polypyrrole (PPy) and graphene. It has been observed that inclusion of cellulose in PPy increases the specific capacitance by 318% with moderate energy density and appreciably high power density compared to PPy alone. Similar results are obtained for graphene/PPy/cellulose composites where a 273% increase of specific capacitance is observed with the incorporation of cellulose in graphene/PPy composites without deteriorating the cyclic stabilities of the electrode materials.