Stretchable Wire-Shaped Asymmetric Supercapacitors Based on Pristine and MnO2 Coated Carbon Nanotube Fibers

• Published in: ACS nano 2015-06, Vol.9 (6), p.6088-6096
• Main Authors: Xu, Ping, Wei, Bingqing, Cao, Zeyuan, Zheng, Jie, Gong, Ke, Li, Faxue, Yu, Jianyong, Li, Qingwen, Lu, Weibang, Byun, Joon-Hyung, Kim, Byung-Sun, Yan, Yushan, Chou, Tsu-Wei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b01244

While the emerging wire-shaped supercapacitors (WSS) have been demonstrated as promising energy storage devices to be implemented in smart textiles, challenges in achieving the combination of both high mechanical stretchability and excellent electrochemical performance still exist. Here, an asymmetric configuration is applied to the WSS, extending the potential window from 0.8 to 1.5 V, achieving tripled energy density and doubled power density compared to its asymmetric counterpart while accomplishing stretchability of up to 100% through the prestrainning-then-buckling approach. The stretchable asymmetric WSS constituted of MnO2/CNT hybrid fiber positive electrode, aerogel CNT fiber negative electrode and KOH-PVA electrolyte possesses a high specific capacitance of around 157.53 μF cm–1 at 50 mV s–1 and a high energy density varying from 17.26 to 46.59 nWh cm–1 with the corresponding power density changing from 7.63 to 61.55 μW cm–1. Remarkably, a cyclic tensile strain of up to 100% exerts negligible effects on the electrochemical performance of the stretchable asymmetric WSS. Moreover, after 10 000 galvanostatic charge–discharge cycles, the specific capacitance retains over 99%, demonstrating a long cyclic stability.