Synthesis of Aminopyrene-tetraone-Modified Reduced Graphene Oxide as an Electrode Material for High-Performance Supercapacitors

In this study, we successfully anchored 2-aminopyrene-3,4,9,10-tetraone (PYT-NH2), a small organic molecule, onto graphene oxide (GO) and then further chemically reduced it to obtain PYT-NH2/reduced graphene oxide (rGO). We observed that, as an electrode material for high-performance supercapacitor application, PYT-NH2/rGO exhibited higher capability and smaller charge transfer resistance in comparison with PYT-NH2/GO, rGO, and PYT-NH2. The specific capacitances were measured as 326.6 and 229.2 F g(-1) for PYT-NH2/rGO and PYT-NH2/GO, respectively, at a current density of 0.5 A g(-1) in 1 M sulfuric acid (H2SO4) electrolyte. In addition, we obtained the capacitance of 77.2 F g(-1) for PYT-NH2/rGO//activated carbon (AC) at 0.5 A g(-1) with an energy density of 15.4 W h kg(-1). Moreover, for the fabricated hybrid capacitor, the capacitance retention of 25 000 cycles was nearly 100% at 5 A g(-1), thus manifesting excellent electrochemical stability and signaling promising potential in energy storage applications.