Issue 32, 2020

Transparent and flexible high-power supercapacitors based on carbon nanotube fibre aerogels

Abstract

In this work, we report the fabrication of continuous transparent and flexible supercapacitors by depositing a CNT network onto a polymer electrolyte membrane directly from an aerogel of ultra-long CNTs produced floating in the gas phase. The supercapacitors show a combination of a power density of 1370 kW kg−1 at high transmittance (ca. 70%), and high electrochemical stability during extended cycling (>94% capacitance retention over 20 000 cycles) and against repeated 180° flexural deformation. They represent a significant enhancement of 1–3 orders of magnitude compared to prior state-of-the-art transparent supercapacitors based on graphene, CNTs, and rGO. These features mainly arise from the exceptionally long length of CNTs, which makes the material behave as a bulk conductor instead of an aspect ratio-limited percolating network, even for electrodes with >90% transparency. The electrical and capacitive figures-of-merit for the transparent conductor are FoMe = 2.7, and FoMc = 0.46 F S−1 cm−2 respectively.

Graphical abstract: Transparent and flexible high-power supercapacitors based on carbon nanotube fibre aerogels

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
19 Jun 2020
Accepted
16 Jul 2020
First published
16 Jul 2020

Nanoscale, 2020,12, 16980-16986

Transparent and flexible high-power supercapacitors based on carbon nanotube fibre aerogels

E. Senokos, M. Rana, M. Vila, J. Fernandez-Cestau, R. D. Costa, R. Marcilla and J. J. Vilatela, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 16980 DOI: 10.1039/D0NR04646A

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