Supercapacitor studies of activated carbon functionalized with poly(ethylene dioxythiophene): Effects of surfactants, electrolyte concentration on electrochemical properties

[Display omitted] •Protonic surfactant possesses strong electrostatic interaction with monomer.•Non-ionic surfactant influence on electrodeposition of polymer was the least.•Nanocomposite with unique layered morphology obtained using camphor sulfonic acid.•The nanocomposite possesses specific capacitance value of 240 Fg−1at 10 mV s−1.•Specific capacitance value was retained up to 90% till 5000 charge-discharge cycles. Electropolymerization of poly(ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT) on activated carbon (AC) was performed using different surfactants such as anionic surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate), protonic surfactant (camphor sulphonic acid) and non-ionic surfactant (Triton) in 0.1 M H2SO4. The effects of concentration of different surfactants for electrodeposition of PEDOT on AC were analyzed using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), cyclic voltammetry (CV), and SEM techniques. Supercapacitors (SC) were fabricated using AC/PEDOT composite electrodes and 0.1 M H2SO4 as an electrolyte. The specific capacitance (Cs) values were calculated using CV at different concentrations of surfactants, electrolytes and variation of potential. The electrolyte containing 0.1 M H2SO4 and 0.02 M camphor sulphonic acid showed to have the highest specific capacitance value of 240 Fg−1 than other surfactant based SCs. Galvanostatic charge/discharge at varying current density were performed on SCs containing different surfactant based electrodes to study their cyclic stability.