Conducting Polymers for Pseudocapacitive Energy Storage

Developing energy storage devices to be utilized within a rapidly advancing energy market requires a multipronged approach whereby material synthesis and engineering fundamentals combine to enable technological advances. These devices should be able to store a large amount of energy in a small, lightweight package, and should be able to distribute that energy quickly for high rate applications. Pseudocapacitors made from conducting polymers, which store charge via rapid reduction and oxidation reactions, are a particularly promising candidate. This perspective explores conductivity and charge storage mechanisms in conducting polymers and describes how synthetic strategies can affect these properties. We…