Different assembled nano-MnO₂ fiber supercapacitors applied for smart wearable clothing

Abstract

With rapid development in the smart wearable field, new-style flexible energy storage devices are necessary to satisfy the demands of flexible smart clothing. Thereinto, fiber supercapacitors present promising application prospects. This work puts forward a facile and reliable strategy to fabricate coaxial fiber electrodes via binary wet spinning, and further assembles them into parallel or twisted nano-MnO2 fiber supercapacitors. In the obtained fiber electrode, a carboxymethylcellulose layer onto nano-MnO2 not only allows the requisite ion exchange between the electrochemical active materials and gel electrolyte, but also plays the role of separator to protect the two fiber electrodes effectively from contacting a short circuit, greatly ensuring the electrochemical stability of the nano-MnO2 fiber supercapacitors. The parallel nano-MnO2 fiber supercapacitor reaches a maximum CL of 19.7 μF/cm, EL of 0.0027 μWh/cm and PL of 1.49 μW/cm; the twisted MnO2 fiber supercapacitor achieves maximum CL, EL and PL of 49 μF/cm, 0.0053 μWh/cm and 1.0 μW/cm, respectively. Besides, the outstanding softness and tensile properties of the obtained nano-MnO2 fiber supercapacitors also guarantee stable electrochemical performance under bending, knotting or other large-distortion situations, which is beneficial to develop a new generation of metal oxide fiber supercapacitors for smart wearable clothing.