Advances on Emerging Materials for Flexible Supercapacitors: Current Trends and Beyond

Abstract

The progressive size reduction of electronic components is experiencing bottlenecks in shrinking charge storage devices like batteries and supercapacitors, limiting their development into wearable and flexible zero-pollution technologies. The inherent long cycle life, rapid charge-discharge patterns, and power density of supercapacitors rank them superior over other energy storage devices. In the modern market of zero-pollution energy devices, currently the lightweight formula and shape adaptability are trending to meet the current requirement of wearables. Carbon nanomaterials have the potential to meet this demand, as they are the core of active electrode materials for supercapacitors and texturally tailored to demonstrate flexible and stretchable properties. With this perspective, the latest progress in novel materials from conventional carbons to recently developed and emerging nanomaterials toward lightweight stretchable active compounds for flexi-wearable supercapacitors is presented. In addition, the limitations and challenges in realizing wearable energy storage systems and integrating the future of nanomaterials for efficient wearable technology are provided. Moreover, future perspectives on economically viable materials for wearables are also discussed, which could motivate researchers to pursue fabrication of cheap and efficient flexible nanomaterials for energy storage and pave the way for enabling a widerange of material-based applications.

Prospective advances in MXene inks: screen printable sediments for flexible micro-supercapacitor applications

“…The fabrication of in-plane MSCs requires the printing of these electrodes on flexible substrates and sandwiching electrodes with an insulator/electrolyte. 4 However, the viability of such printed MSCs depends on the performance; the performance of the device depends on the electrode material selection. In this context, MXene nanosheets have been found to be efficient materials for the fabrication of conductive flexible electrodes.…”

“…For instance, in a recent research study, cellulose nanofibrils and Ti 3 C 2 T x MXenes (as CNFs/MXene liquid electrodes) have been used in a stretchable TENG (CM-TENG). 4 The working mechanism and performance of CM-TENG have been shown in Fig. 11c.…”

“…Therefore, screen-printing of micro-architectures for flexible micro-sized energy-storage devices like micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) has attracted a lot of interest in recent years. 2–5 The formulation of functional inks for the screen-printing of MSCs with high-performance nanomaterials in the fabrication of next-generation flexible electronic devices is necessary. In this context, conductive and semi-conductive two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials with a high surface area and unique physicochemical properties have been more focused on in the last decade as functional material inks for this purpose.…”

Self-Template Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Hollow Carbon Nanospheres with Rational Mesoporosity for Efficient Supercapacitors

“…Electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) as a representative SC have characteristics of high-power density, superior durability, and abundant resources [13,14]. In EDLCs, electric charges are stored through reversible ion adsorption/desorption in the pores of carbon material or on the electrode/electrolyte interface.…”

Facile Synthesis Mn2O3 Nanorod Arrays: A Significant Material for Supercapacitor Electrode Application

“…Developing innovative energy storage devices has become a significant challenge due to the rising of modern technological revolution and over-consumption of natural resources especially fossil fuels [1,2]. Supercapacitors have drawn tremendous interest, because of their attractive features such as rapid charge/discharge, extended cycle life and high-power density.…”