Metal oxide-conducting polymer-based composite electrodes for energy storage applications

Organic-inorganic composite materials have made a huge impact in various technological fields. Particularly, inorganic metal oxide/conducting polymer composites have become very important for energy storage devices such as batteries and supercapacitors. Metal oxides owing to their various oxidation states and low cost have become potential materials for supercapacitor electrodes. The main disadvantage of metal oxides is lack of their stability in acid electrolytes, low electrical conductivity and difficulty of processing for making electrodes. On contrary, conducting polymers have high conductivity and offer ease of synthesis, but their poor cycle life and mechanical integrity limit their use for practical applications. The combination of metal oxide and conducting polymers as composites can complement each other in overcoming the individual’s shortcomings, thus forming a potential composite material for supercapacitor applications. 

This chapter will provide an overview of the types and applications of supercapacitors followed by the main emphasis on giving the detailed literature review on the recent work done on the metal oxide/conducting polymer composites for electrode materials of supercapacitors. The chapter concludes the discussion by giving a comparison between various metal oxide/conducting polymer composites and highlighting the potential benefit of conducting polymers in improving the performance of supercapacitors.