Universal Nature-Inspired and Amine-Promoted Metallization for Flexible Electronics and Supercapacitors

Abstract

Economical and abundant natural biological materials provide a low-cost and scalable approach to develop next-generation flexible and wearable electronics. Herein, a universal strategy of nature-inspired and amine-promoted metallization, namely, NIAPM, is presented to make high-quality metals for electronics fabrication. The introduction of poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI) significantly shortens the time of metallization from >48 h to ≈6 h, and the phenol compounds (TP) from green tea make metals bond tightly on all demonstrated surfaces. The as-made thin metal films of Cu and Ni feature high conductivity (∼1.0 Ω/□), excellent mechanical stability and flexibility even at the bending radius of ∼1 mm. Moreover, NIAPM is compatible with typical lithography techniques for fabricating metallic patterns, showing considerable potential applications in flexible electronics. As a proof-of-concept, two devices based on melamine-templated Cu sponges are first prepared for detecting the change of external pressure with a resistance sensitivity of 18.1 kPa and collecting high-viscosity crude oil, respectively. Then, a high-performance bendable solid supercapacitor is demonstrated using as-prepared Ni metallized fabrics and the activated porous carbon from the recycled waste in NIPAM as flexible electrodes, which possesses comparable areal capacitance of 45.5 F·g, and energy density of 7.88 Wh·g at the power density of 35 W·g. Therefore, it is anticipated that such a time-saving, cost-effective and whole solution-processed NIAPM strategy can inspire further practical applications in the fields of surface chemistry, material science, flexible and wearable electronics, etc.

Polymer‐Assisted Metal Deposition (PAMD) for Flexible and Wearable Electronics: Principle, Materials, Printing, and Devices

“…A key research element of SC is to develop highly flexible metallic current collectors. In the last few years, PAMD has made a significant contribution to this field by developing textile‐based SCs …”

Engineering Copper Adhesion on Poly-Epoxy Surfaces Allows One-Pot Metallization of Polymer Composite Telecommunication Waveguides

“…For example, the microelectronics sector requires thin, smooth, and adherent metallization films for the More than Moore generation, and for this it successfully adapts traditional wet chemistry recipes [7]. Laser structuring was reported to be efficient for the local metallization of line of sight polymer surfaces [8], nature inspired wet chemistry protocols were shown to be efficient for the application of strongly adherent metallic nanoparticles on flexible electronics [9], whereas electroless deposition was shown to be efficient for the metallization of porous polymers [10] and for the roll-to-roll metallization of a wide variety of organic substrates [11]. In addition, UV-ozone polymer surface modification was shown to ensure long-term adhesion of copper films on poly(methyl methacrylate) substrates [12].…”

Ultraelastic Yarns from Curcumin‐Assisted ELD toward Wearable Human–Machine Interface Textiles

“…The general methods to achieve flexible sensors with excellent conductivity and durability at low cost are to deposit metals, such as Ni and Cu, on substrates such as textiles, [24][25][26] plastic films, [27][28][29] fluorine rubbers, [30,31] and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). [32,33] The exercised metallization strategies including sputtering, [34] electrochemical deposition, [35] and chemical vapor deposition [36] to physically or chemically plate metal thin films on flexible substrates have been studied.…”