Bottom-Up Fabrication of Activated Carbon Fiber for All-Solid-State Supercapacitor with Excellent Electrochemical Performance

Abstract

Activated carbon (AC) is the most extensively used electrode material for commercial electric double layer capacitors (EDLC) given its high specific surface area (SSA) and moderate cost. However, AC is primarily used in the forms of powders, which remains a big challenge in developing AC powders into continuous fibers. If AC powders can be processed into fiber, then they may be scaled up for practical applications to supercapacitors (SCs) and satisfy the rapid development of flexible electronics. Herein, we report a bottom-up method to fabricate AC fiber employing graphene oxide (GO) as both dispersant and binder. After chemical reduction, the fiber has high electrical conductivity (185 S m(-1)), high specific surface area (1476.5 m(2) g(-1)), and good mechanical flexibility. An all solid-state flexible SC was constructed using the prepared fiber as electrode, which is free of binder, conducting additive, and additional current collector. The fiber-shaped SC shows high capacitance (27.6 F cm(-3) or 43.8 F g(-1), normalized to the two-electrode volume), superior cyclability (90.4% retention after 10 000 cycles), and good bendability (96.8% retention after bending 1000 times).