A strong and highly flexible aramid nanofibers/PEDOT:PSS film for all-solid-state supercapacitors with superior cycling stability

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) is a promising electrode material for flexible supercapacitors mainly because of its pseudocapacitive nature. Nevertheless, its practical applications are still plagued by its poor electrochemical cycling stability due to its low mechanical strength. Herein, we have fabricated a strong, flexible and highly conductive aramid nanofibers/PEDOT:PSS (ANFs/PEDOT:PSS) film by vacuum filtration and subsequent solvent post-treatment. The flexible all-solid-state symmetric supercapacitor from the ANFs/PEDOT:PSS film with an operating potential window of 0–1.6 V exhibits an energy density of 4.54 W h kg−1 and an excellent capacitance retention of 84.5% after 10 000 cycles at room temperature. Excitingly, the flexible device still displays an energy density of 3.83 W h kg−1 with a capacitance retention of 89.5% after 5000 cycles even at −20 °C. Moreover, the flexible device is found to be electrochemically stable under bending and twisting conditions, even sand striking, which could be ascribed to strong hydrogen bonding interaction between ANFs and PEDOT:PSS. The high electrochemical performances make this electrode a promising candidate for flexible energy storage devices in practical applications even at sub-zero temperatures.

[1]  Byung Chul Kim,et al.  Recent Progress in Flexible Electrochemical Capacitors: Electrode Materials, Device Configuration, and Functions , 2015 .

[2]  Don Harfield,et al.  Interconnected carbon nanosheets derived from hemp for ultrafast supercapacitors with high energy. , 2013, ACS nano.

[3]  Olle Inganäs,et al.  High performance PEDOT/lignin biopolymer composites for electrochemical supercapacitors , 2016 .

[4]  Guang Yang,et al.  Freestanding bacterial cellulose–polypyrrole nanofibres paper electrodes for advanced energy storage devices , 2014 .

[5]  M. El‐Kady,et al.  Graphene-based materials for flexible supercapacitors. , 2015, Chemical Society reviews.

[6]  John Wang,et al.  Flexible Asymmetric Supercapacitor Based on Structure‐Optimized Mn3O4/Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanohybrid Paper with High Energy and Power Density , 2015 .

[7]  G. Gary Wang,et al.  Flexible solid-state supercapacitors: design, fabrication and applications , 2014 .

[8]  A. MacDiarmid,et al.  "Synthetic Metals": A Novel Role for Organic Polymers (Nobel Lecture). , 2001, Angewandte Chemie.

[9]  R. Compton,et al.  Molecular‐Scale Hybridization of Clay Monolayers and Conducting Polymer for Thin‐Film Supercapacitors , 2015 .

[10]  Wen Chen,et al.  Polypyrrole-coated paper for flexible solid-state energy storage , 2013 .

[11]  Chen Li,et al.  Chemically Crosslinked Hydrogel Film Leads to Integrated Flexible Supercapacitors with Superior Performance , 2015, Advanced materials.

[12]  Sreekumar Kurungot,et al.  Electrodeposited polyethylenedioxythiophene with infiltrated gel electrolyte interface: a close contest of an all-solid-state supercapacitor with its liquid-state counterpart. , 2014, Nanoscale.

[13]  Ke Li,et al.  Free-Standing Conducting Polymer Films for High-Performance Energy Devices. , 2016, Angewandte Chemie.

[14]  Sreekumar Kurungot,et al.  Novel scalable synthesis of highly conducting and robust PEDOT paper for a high performance flexible solid supercapacitor , 2015 .

[15]  Shayan Seyedin,et al.  High-Performance Flexible All-Solid-State Supercapacitor from Large Free-Standing Graphene-PEDOT/PSS Films , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[16]  Mao Peng,et al.  Hydrogen-Bonding Assembly of Rigid-Rod Poly(p-sulfophenylene terephthalamide) and Flexible-Chain Poly(vinyl alcohol) for Transparent, Strong, and Tough Molecular Composites , 2014 .

[17]  Pierre-Louis Taberna,et al.  Outstanding performance of activated graphene based supercapacitors in ionic liquid electrolyte from −50 to 80 °C , 2013 .

[18]  Yongsung Ji,et al.  High‐Performance Pseudocapacitive Microsupercapacitors from Laser‐Induced Graphene , 2016, Advanced materials.

[19]  Yong Lei,et al.  High performance supercapacitor for efficient energy storage under extreme environmental temperatures , 2014 .

[20]  Xingbin Yan,et al.  Fabrication of carbon nanofiber-polyaniline composite flexible paper for supercapacitor. , 2011, Nanoscale.

[21]  Jinxing Huo,et al.  Solution-processed poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) nanocomposite paper electrodes for high-capacitance flexible supercapacitors , 2016 .

[22]  A. Waas,et al.  Dispersions of aramid nanofibers: a new nanoscale building block. , 2011, ACS nano.

[23]  Jiecai Han,et al.  Strong and stiff aramid nanofiber/carbon nanotube nanocomposites. , 2015, ACS nano.

[24]  N. Wu,et al.  Titanium carbide nanocube core induced interfacial growth of crystalline polypyrrole/polyvinyl alcohol lamellar shell for wide-temperature range supercapacitors , 2015 .

[25]  Jianli Cheng,et al.  A Fiber Supercapacitor with High Energy Density Based on Hollow Graphene/Conducting Polymer Fiber Electrode , 2016, Advanced materials.

[26]  Guowei Yang,et al.  All-Solid-State Symmetric Supercapacitor Based on Co3O4 Nanoparticles on Vertically Aligned Graphene. , 2015, ACS nano.

[27]  Jianhua Xu,et al.  The preparation and electrochemical properties of PEDOT:PSS/MnO2/PEDOT ternary film and its application in flexible micro-supercapacitor , 2016 .

[28]  H. Alshareef,et al.  All conducting polymer electrodes for asymmetric solid-state supercapacitors , 2015 .

[29]  Min Jiang,et al.  A Novel and Facile One-Pot Solvothermal Synthesis of PEDOT-PSS/Ni-Mn-Co-O Hybrid as an Advanced Supercapacitor Electrode Material. , 2016, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[30]  Husam N. Alshareef,et al.  A conducting polymer nucleation scheme for efficient solid-state supercapacitors on paper , 2014 .

[31]  S. Jun,et al.  Modified physico–chemical properties and supercapacitive performance via DMSO inducement to PEDOT:PSS active layer , 2014 .

[32]  Maria Strømme,et al.  Surface Modified Nanocellulose Fibers Yield Conducting Polymer-Based Flexible Supercapacitors with Enhanced Capacitances. , 2015, ACS nano.

[33]  Minshen Zhu,et al.  Nanostructured Polypyrrole as a flexible electrode material of supercapacitor , 2016 .

[34]  Xuetong Zhang,et al.  Conducting polymer aerogels from supercritical CO2 drying PEDOT-PSS hydrogels , 2010 .

[35]  Zan Gao,et al.  Flexible all-solid-state hierarchical NiCo2O4/porous graphene paper asymmetric supercapacitors with an exceptional combination of electrochemical properties , 2015 .

[36]  Yu Song,et al.  Pushing the Cycling Stability Limit of Polypyrrole for Supercapacitors , 2015 .

[37]  A. Hirata,et al.  Bicontinuous nanotubular graphene–polypyrrole hybrid for high performance flexible supercapacitors , 2016 .

[38]  K. Ho,et al.  Highly conductive PEDOT:PSS electrode by simple film treatment with methanol for ITO-free polymer solar cells , 2012 .

[39]  Guofa Cai,et al.  Highly Stable Transparent Conductive Silver Grid/PEDOT:PSS Electrodes for Integrated Bifunctional Flexible Electrochromic Supercapacitors , 2016 .

[40]  Shanyi Du,et al.  Self-stretchable, helical carbon nanotube yarn supercapacitors with stable performance under extreme deformation conditions , 2015 .