%0 Journal Article
%T Reduced Graphene Oxide Supported Antimony Species for High-Performance Supercapacitor Electrodes
%A Mateusz Ciszewski
%A Andrzej Mianowski
%A Ginter Nawrat
%A Piotr Szatkowski
%J ISRN Electrochemistry
%D 2014
%R 10.1155/2014/826832
%X Antimony species was chemically anchored on graphene oxide using antimony (III) chloride precursor and then converted to the reduced graphene oxide-antimony species composite by a well-established polyol method. The resultant composite was successfully used as supercapacitor electrodes in a two-electrode symmetric system with aqueous electrolyte. The specific capacitance calculated from the galvanostatic charge/discharge curves obtained for this composite was 289£¿F/g. The enhanced capacitance results were confirmed by the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry. The high capacitance of the reduced graphene oxide-antimony species composite arises from the combination of double-layer charging and pseudocapacitance caused by the Faradaic reactions of the intercalated antimony species and residual surface-bonded functional groups. 1. Introduction Antimony is widely used in semiconductors, antifriction alloys, small arms and tracer bullets, and cable sheathing and in large quantities as a flame retarding additive [1]. It has been widely used in the past to enhance the hardness and the mechanical stability of lead alloys in batteries [2]. However, its usage was gradually limited because of toxicity, mostly of the trivalent species. In the lead batteries, antimony is generally known to be able to pass on a negative electrode through corrosion of current leads and decrease in the battery service life [3]. The detailed description of antimony reactions in lead batteries was given by Pavlov et al. [4], who suggested that the influence of the antimony on the lead battery work depends on antimony species used in battery preparation. In case of the lead electrodes immersed in the antimony solution, formation of ions is observed that passivates the lead and decreases the capacitance. While for Pb-Sb alloys in sulfuric acid solution formation of antimony complexes of the type is observed that have a beneficial effect on the capacitance of electrodes. It is well known that antimony corrodes easily but results [5] suggest that the antimony-containing corrosion layer discharges with difficulty, and thus the active material discharges more readily than the corrosion layer and a passivation layer does not form at the grid/active material interface. So it appears that addition of antimony to the active material of electrode effectively retards capacitance loss. These opinions seem to be true because antimony has been thoroughly examined as an additive in newer energy sources, that is, lithium-ion batteries, liquid metal batteries, and fuel cells. In
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.electrochemistry/2014/826832/