Cellulose Nanocrystal Aerogels as Universal 3D Lightweight Substrates for Supercapacitor Materials

Abstract

Chemically cross-linked cellulose nanocrystal aerogels represent a versatile and universal substrate on which to prepare lightweight hybrid materials. In situ incorporation of polypyrrole nanofibers, polypyrrole-coated carbon nanotubes, and manganese dioxide nanoparticles in the aerogels gives flexible 3D supercapacitor devices with excellent capacitance retention, low internal resistance, and fast charge-discharge rates.

Benchmarking Cellulose Nanocrystals: From the Laboratory to Industrial Production

“…The most significant difference can be seen in the char residue mass percentages (500˚C), which range from 11 to 27% for Lab-Made and AITF CNCs being the lowest and highest, respectively. The composition of the char residue is currently unclear but is proposed to contain levoglucosan and low molecular weight hydrocarbons along with hydrogen, CO, CO 2 …”

“…6, [44][45][46][47][48][49][50] The surface modification routes we have developed are water-based and scalable leading to, for example, hydrophobic, responsive, biomimetic, and crosslinkable CNCs. [51][52][53][54][55] Although we have targeted advanced applications such as industrial coatings, 56,57 tissue scaffolds, 6,48,50 energy storage 2,58 water purification 59 and food and cosmetics, [44][45][46][47] we remain committed to thorough characterization of CNC particles and interfaces. This has included characterization of chemical, physical, mechanical and selfassembly properties, 34,52,[60][61][62] as well as the development of new methods to predict and assess CNC dispersion.…”

Preparation and characterization of thermally stable cellulose nanocrystals via a sustainable approach of FeCl3-catalyzed formic acid hydrolysis

“…For the past few years, the preparation of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and their application in composite materials have gained increasing attention because of their inherent properties like outstanding mechanical properties (elastic modulus of 130-150 GPa) (Iwamoto et al 2009), high specific surface area (up to several hundreds of m 2 /g) (Ng et al 2015), high length-to-width ratio (up to several hundreds) (Jonoobi et al 2015) combined with low density (1.6 g/cm 3 ) (Moon et al 2011), low thermal expansion (0.1 ppm K -1 ) (Song et al 2013), biodegradability and renewability. Due to their special intrinsic nanostructure and excellent properties, CNCs have wide application potential in nanomaterials, such as aerogels (Mueller et al 2015;yang et al 2015), biomedical materials (Domingues et al 2014;Dugan et al 2013;Jorfi and Foster 2015;Plackett et al 2014), packaging materials (Fortunati et al 2012;Li et al 2013b;Mihindukulasuriya and Lim 2014), optical (Biyani et al 2013;Schlesinger et al 2015) or electroconductive (Lyubimova et al 2015;Ning et al 2015;Shi et al 2013;Tang et al 2014) materials, and several mechanically reinforced nanocomposites (de Castro et al 2015;Habibi 2014;Jonoobi et al 2015;Ng et al 2015;Sapkota et al 2015;Therien-Aubin et al 2015;Yang et al 2014).…”

Biomass-derived dendritic-like porous carbon aerogels for supercapacitors

“…Among various electrical energy storage devices, supercapacitors have received extensive attention due to their advantages of superior reversibility, high power capacities and excellent cycling stabilities [2]. Currently, the major challenge of supercapacitors is to improve their energy density and maintain the high power density at the same time.…”