Donor–Acceptor Polymers for Electrochemical Supercapacitors: Synthesis, Testing, and Theory

Donor–acceptor polymers can store both a positive and negative charge allowing them to function as both the positive and negative charge storage material in a supercapacitor device, however few have been explored for this application. Here, we describe the synthesis of several donor–acceptor polymers and their electrodeposited polymer electrodes. We use differing molecular structures to examine the effect of electron acceptor concentration and show that device stability can be improved significantly by increasing the acceptor concentration. Further, we provide computational insight into the important chemical requirements for achieving even higher performance supercapacitors based on donor–…