Ultraflexible and robust graphene supercapacitors printed on textiles for wearable electronics applications

Abdelkader, Amr M; Karim, Nazmul; Vall�s, Cristina; Afroj, Shaila; Novoselov, Kostya S; Yeates, Stephen G

Abstract

© 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed graphene supercapacitors have the potential to empower tomorrow’s wearable electronics. We report a solid-state flexible supercapacitor device printed on textiles using graphene oxide ink and a screen-printing technique. After printing, graphene oxide was reduced in situ via a rapid electrochemical method avoiding the use of any reducing reagents that may damage the textile substrates. The printed electrodes exhibited excellent mechanical stability due to the strong interaction between the ink and textile substrate. The unique hierarchical porous structure of the electrodes facilitated ionic diffusion and maximised the surface area available for the electrolyte/ active material interface. The obtained device showed outstanding cyclic stability over 10 000 cycles and maintained excellent mechanical flexibility, which is necessary for wearable applications. The simple printing technique is readily scalable and avoids the problems associated with fabricating supercapacitor devices made of conductive yarn, as previously reported in the literature.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 4, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jul 24, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Dec 8, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 9, 2019
• Journal: 2D Materials
• Electronic ISSN: 2053-1583
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 035016
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/2053-1583/aa7d71
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/4789611
• Additional Information: Journal title: 2D Materials; Article type: paper; Article title: Ultraflexible and robust graphene supercapacitors printed on textiles for wearable electronics applications; Copyright information: © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd; License information: cc-by Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.; Date received: 2017-03-31; Date accepted: 2017-07-04; Online publication date: 2017-07-24