A novel galvanostatic polymerization for high specific capacitance poly(3-methylthiophene) in ionic liquid

For the first time it is here reported a novel and clean galvanostatic procedure to polymerize poly(3-methylthiophene) in the 1-ethyl-3-methyl-imidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (EMITFSI) ionic liquid (IL). The strategy consists in the use of the acid additive trifluoromethanesulfonimide (HTFSI) displaying the same anion of the IL and which provides an acid proton that is reduced to H2 at the counter electrode upon the anodic polymer growth on the working electrode and prevents consumption of the ionic liquid with great advantage in terms of costs. This procedure provides a pMeT electrode featuring 250 Fg-1 in EMITFSI at 60°C, a very interesting result in view of application of such pMeT in IL-based hybrid supercapacitors. Here are reported the results of the galvanostatic polymerization of pMeT in EMITFSI-HTFSI as well as the performance in EMITFSI at 60°C of the obtained pMeT electrode.