Electrochemically building three-dimensional supramolecular polymer hydrogel for flexible solid-state micro-supercapacitors

Wood-inspired elastic and conductive cellulose aerogel with anisotropic tubular and multilayered structure for wearable pressure sensors and supercapacitors

Cellulose nanofiber (CNF) aerogels hold considerable potential in wearable devices as pressure sensors and flexible electrochemical energy storage. However, the undirectional assembly of CNFs results in poor mechanical performance, which limits their application in structural engineering. In this study, we propose an anisotropic aerogel with both elastic and conductive properties inspired by the micro-nanostructure of natural wood. One-dimensional TEMPO cellulose nanofibers (TOCNF) were utilized as structural building blocks, while two-dimensional reduced graphene oxide (rGO) served as the electron transfer platform, owing to their high mechanical strength. The directionally aligned tubular structure composed of multilayered sheets was formed through rapid unidirectional freezing and subsequent steam heating reduction. These structures efficiently transferred stress throughout the porous skeleton, resulting in TOCNF-rGO aerogels with high compressibility and excellent fatigue resistance (2000 cycles at 60 % strain). The aerogel also exhibited high sensitivity, wide detection range, relatively fast response, and excellent compression cycle stability, making it suitable for accurately detecting various human biological and motion signals. Additionally, TOCNF-rGO can be assembled into a flexible all-solid-state symmetric supercapacitor that delivers excellent electrochemical performance. It is expected that this biomass-derived aerogel will be a versatile material for flexible electronic devices for energy conversion and storage.

Nanostructured Conducting Polymers and Their Applications in Energy Storage Devices

Due to the energy requirements for various human activities, and the need for a substantial change in the energy matrix, it is important to research and design new materials that allow the availability of appropriate technologies. In this sense, together with proposals that advocate a reduction in the conversion, storage, and feeding of clean energies, such as fuel cells and electrochemical capacitors energy consumption, there is an approach that is based on the development of better applications for and batteries. An alternative to commonly used inorganic materials is conducting polymers (CP). Strategies based on the formation of composite materials and nanostructures allow outstanding performances in electrochemical energy storage devices such as those mentioned. Particularly, the nanostructuring of CP stands out because, in the last two decades, there has been an important evolution in the design of various types of nanostructures, with a strong focus on their synergistic combination with other types of materials. This bibliographic compilation reviews state of the art in this area, with a special focus on how nanostructured CP would contribute to the search for new materials for the development of energy storage devices, based mainly on the morphology they present and on their versatility to be combined with other materials, which allows notable improvements in aspects such as reduction in ionic diffusion trajectories and electronic transport, optimization of spaces for ion penetration, a greater number of electrochemically active sites and better stability in charge/discharge cycles.

Recent advances in polyaniline-based micro-supercapacitors

The rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoTs) and proliferation of wearable electronics have significantly stimulated the pursuit of distributed power supply systems that are small and light. Accordingly, micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) have recently attracted tremendous research interest due to their high power density, good energy density, long cycling life, and rapid charge/discharge rate delivered in a limited volume and area. As an emerging class of electrochemical energy storage devices, MSCs using polyaniline (PANI) electrodes are envisaged to bridge the gap between carbonaceous MSCs and micro-batteries, leading to a high power density together with improved energy density. However, despite the intensive development of PANI-based MSCs in the past few decades, a comprehensive review focusing on the chemical properties and synthesis of PANI, working mechanisms, design principles, and electrochemical performances of MSCs is lacking. Thus, herein, we summarize the recent advances in PANI-based MSCs using a wide range of electrode materials. Firstly, the fundamentals of MSCs are outlined including their working principle, device design, fabrication technology, and performance metrics. Then, the working principle and synthesis methods of PANI are discussed. Afterward, MSCs based on various PANI materials including pure PANI, PANI hydrogel, and PANI composites are discussed in detail. Lastly, concluding remarks and perspectives on their future development are presented. This review can present new ideas and give rise to new opportunities for the design of high-performance miniaturized PANI-based MSCs that underpin the sustainable prosperity of the approaching IoTs era.

A short review on the synthesis and advance applications of polyaniline hydrogels

Conductive polymeric hydrogels (CPHs) exhibit remarkable properties such as high toughness, self-recoverability, electrical conductivity, transparency, freezing resistance, stimulus responsiveness, stretch ability, self-healing, and strain sensitivity. Due to their exceptional physicochemical and physio-mechanical properties, among the widely studied CPHs, polyaniline (PANI) has been the subject of immense interest due to its stability, tunable electrical conductivity, low cost, and good biocompatibility. The current state of research on PANI hydrogel is discussed in this short review, along with the properties, preparation methods, and common characterization techniques as well as their applications in a variety of fields such as sensor and actuator manufacturing, biomedicine, and soft electronics. Furthermore, the future development and applications of PANI hydrogels are also mentioned.

Conductive polymeric hydrogels (CPHs) exhibit remarkable properties for advance technological applications.

Recent advances in conductive polymer hydrogel composites and nanocomposites for flexible electrochemical supercapacitors

Flexible electrochemical supercapacitors have shown great potential in the next-generation wearable and implantable energy-storage devices. Conductive polymer hydrogels usually possess unique porosity, high conductivity, and broadly tunable properties through molecular designs and structural regulations, thus holding tremendous promise as high-performance electrodes and electrolytes for flexible electrochemical supercapacitors. Numerous chemical and structural designs have provided unlimited opportunities to tune the properties of conductive polymer hydrogels to match the various practical demands. Various electrically and ionically conductive hydrogels have been developed to fabricate novel electrodes and electrolytes with satisfactory mechanical and electrochemical performance. This feature article focuses on the fabrication and applications of conductive polymer hydrogel composites and nanocomposites as respective electrodes and electrolytes for flexible electrochemical supercapacitors. First, we introduce the representative strategies to prepare electrically and ionically conductive polymer hydrogels. Second, conductive polymer hydrogel composites and nanocomposites as supercapacitor electrodes and electrolytes are presented and discussed. Finally, challenges and perspectives on conductive polymer hydrogel composites and nanocomposites for future flexible electrochemical supercapacitors are presented.

B/N-Enriched Semi-Conductive Polymer Film for Micro-Supercapacitors with AC Line-Filtering Performance

Microsupercapacitors (MSCs) have drawn great attention for use as miniaturized electrochemical energy storage devices in portable, wearable, as well as implantable electronics. Many materials have been developed as electrodes for MSCs. However, the thin-film fabrication for most of these materials involves multistep operations, including filtration, spray coating, and sputtering. Most importantly, these methods present challenges for the preparation of thin films at the atomic or molecular scale. Therefore, the understanding of performance of ultrathin-film-based MSCs remains challenge. Herein, a B/N-enriched polymer film is successfully prepared using the photoassisted interfacial approach. The as-synthesized polymer film exhibits typical semiconductive characteristics and can be easily scaled up to a large area of up to tens of square centimeters. This ultrathin polymer film can be directly transferred to silicon wafers to fabricate MSC through laser scribing. The prepared MSC exhibits specific volumetric capacitance as high as 20.9 F cm^-3, corresponding to volumetric energy density of 2.9 mWh cm^-3 (at 0.1 V s^-1). Moreover, the volumetric power density can reach 1461 W cm^-3, surpassing most existing semiconductive polymer film-based MSC devices. In addition, the prepared MSC exhibits typical AC line-filtering ability (-67° at 120 Hz). This study offers a facile interfacial approach to preparing semiconductive polymer films with aromatic moieties for microsized energy storage devices.

High-performance Bi2O3-NC anodes through constructing carbon shells and oxygen vacancies for flexible battery-supercapacitor hybrid devices

Battery-supercapacitor hybrid (BSH) devices generally provide both high energy density and power density, but usually suffer from the serious electrochemical kinetics mismatch of cathodes and anodes mainly due to complex faradaic reactions of the unmatched battery-type electrodes used for charge storage, which inevitably degrade the rate capability and power density. To solve this, we propose a facile and efficient strategy of constructing carbon shells and oxygen vacancies. Oxygen-deficient Bi₂O₃ nanoflakes stabilized by N-doped carbon and supported on graphite fibers (GF@Bi₂O₃-NCs) were prepared to improve specific capacity, rate capability and cycling stability. The N/S-codoped carbon aerogels supported on graphite fibers (GF@NS-CAGs) provided a high capacitance of 312 F g^-1 at 1 A g^-1, which was mainly attributed to the microporous structure and high active N content. The flexible quasi-solid-state BSH device based on the GF@Bi₂O₃-NC anode and the GF@NS-CAG cathode with a stable voltage window of 2.3 V could deliver a remarkable capacity of 103 mA h g^-1, an energy density of 118 W h kg^-1 and capacity retention of 95.7% after 10 000 cycles, reflecting that this was a highly-efficient approach to develop high-performance flexible energy storage devices.

Unraveling and Regulating Self-Discharge Behavior of Ti3C2Tx MXene-Based Supercapacitors

Rich chemistry and surface functionalization provide MXenes enhanced electrochemical activity yet severely exacerbate their self-discharge behavior in supercapacitors. However, this self-discharge behavior and its related mechanism are still remaining issues. Herein, we propose a chemically interface-tailored regulation strategy to successfully unravel and efficiently alleviate the self-discharge behavior of Ti₃C₂T_x MXene-based supercapacitors. As a result, Ti₃C₂T_x MXenes with fewer F elements (∼0.65 atom %) show a positive self-discharge rate decline of ∼20% in comparison with MXenes with higher F elements (∼8.09 atom %). Such decline of the F elements can highly increase tight-bonding ions corresponding to an individual self-discharge process, naturally resulting in a dramatic 50% increase of the transition potential (V_T). Therefore, the mixed self-discharge rate from both tight-bonding (contain fewer F elements) and loose-bonding ions (contain more F elements) is accordingly lowered. Through chemically interface-tailored engineering, the significantly changed average oxidation state and local coordination information on MXene affected the interaction of ion counterparts, which was evidently revealed by X-ray absorption fine structures. Theoretically, this greatly improved self-discharge performance was proven to be from higher adsorption energy between the interface of the electrode and the electrolyte by density functional theory. Therefore, this chemically interface-tailored regulation strategy can guide the design of high-performance MXene-based supercapacitors with low self-discharge behavior and will promote its wider commercial applications.

The Effect of an External Magnetic Field on the Electrochemical Capacitance of Nanoporous Nickel for Energy Storage

This work investigates the effect of a magnetic field on the electrochemical performance of nanoporous nickel (np-Ni). We first compare the electrochemical capacitance of np-Ni electrodes, which were prepared using the chemical dealloying strategy under different magnetic flux densities (B = 0, 500 mT). Our experimental data show that np-Ni₅₀₀ prepared under an external magnetic field of 500 mT exhibits a much better electrochemical performance, in comparison with that (np-Ni₀) prepared without applying a magnetic field. Furthermore, the specific capacitance of the np-Ni₀ electrode could be further enhanced when we increase the magnetic flux densities from 0 T to 500 mT, whereas the np-Ni₅₀₀ electrode exhibits a stable electrochemical performance under different magnetic flux densities (B = 0 mT, 300 mT, 500 mT). This could be attributed to the change in the electrochemical impedance of the np-Ni₀ electrode induced by an external magnetic field. Our work thus offers an alternative method to enhance the electrochemical energy storage of materials.