Transparent and flexible high-performance supercapacitors based on single-walled carbon nanotube films

Abstract

Transparent and flexible energy storage devices have gathered great interest due to their suitability for display, sensor and photovoltaic applications. In this paper, we report the application of aerosol synthesized and dry deposited single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) thin films as electrodes for electrochemical double-layer capacitor (EDLC). SWCNT films exhibit extremely large specific capacitance (178 F g -1 or 552 µF cm -2 ), high optical transparency (92%) and stability for 10000 charge/discharge cycles. A transparent and flexible EDLC prototype is constructed with a polyethylene casing and a gel electrolyte.

Stretchable and transparent supercapacitors based on aerosol synthesized single-walled carbon nanotube films

“…It ought to be remarked that recently we have fabricated transparent and exible electrochemical double-layer capacitor (EDLC) prototype from our SWCNT lms. 17 The supercapacitor showed extremely high mass specic capacitance of 178 F g À1 compared to other carbon-based exible and transparent EDLCs. However, that supercapacitor had higher values of the capacitance due to the fact that material properties were tested in a test cell, and the lateral conductivity of the SWCNT lm was not an issue.…”

“…15,16 The porosity and specic surface area of SWCNT lms are very large, and they possess high transparency and exibility. 17 In addition, SWCNTs can withstand extremely high currents (up to 10 9 A cm À2 ) making them an ideal replacement for copper and aluminum in fast integrated charge/discharge circuits. SWCNT lms are thought to be excellent replacement for traditional transparent electrodes, such as indium-tin oxide (ITO), which suffers from several serious drawbacks including limited exibility and chemical resistance, rare raw material and high refraction and haze.…”

Flexible Graphene‐, Graphene‐Oxide‐, and Carbon‐Nanotube‐Based Supercapacitors and Batteries

“…Highly aligned CNTs are used to develop high‐performance transparent and stretchable supercapacitors with a transparency up to 75% and a specific capacitance of 7.3 F g −1 . The aerosol synthesized and dry deposited SWCNT thin films used as electrodes for EDLCs exhibit extremely large specific capacitance of 178F g −1 , areal capacitance of 552 µF cm −2 , high optical transparency (92%), and stability for 10 000 charge/discharge cycles . As demonstrated, CNTs are promising materials to construct high‐performance flexible supercapacitors.…”

Nano‐Engineered Materials for Transparent Supercapacitors

“…Kanninen et al. used an aerosol synthesis method to fabricate thin SWCNT films, and transferred them to PET substrates to fabricate supercapacitor electrodes by a dry press transfer technique . Such electrodes could retrieve a capacitance of 552 μF cm −2 and a transmittance of 92% at 550 nm.…”