Conducting polymer ink for flexible and printable micro-supercapacitors with greatly-enhanced rate capability

Abstract

Conducting polymer ink holds great promise for wearable, flexible, and printable high-power-density micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) but chronically suffers from the poor rate capability ascribing to naturally electron-blocked transferring. Herein, we devise an air-stable, easy-fabricating and rapid electron-transferring polyaniline ink by embedding conductive carboxylic multi-walled carbon nanotubes (C-MWCNTs) networks into polyaniline nanosheets. Due to the optimized electron-transferring kinetics, the rate capability of polyaniline ink is significantly increased by 73.7%. Additionally, the large-scale printable MSCs based on this ink deliver remarkable energy density of 2.6 mWh cm −3 , large areal capacitance of 45.4 mF cm −2 and excellent mechanics-electrochemistry stability with 84.6% capacitance retention against 1000 consecutive bending cycles. Evidently, this work provides the polyaniline ink for large-scale, printable, and flexible MSCs, which can underpin the next generation printed electronics in the approaching era of Internet of Things. Conducting polymer ink with greatly enhanced rate performance is successfully devised by embedding carboxylic MWCNTs into polyaniline nanosheets for scalable printing of high-performance micro-supercapacitors. 1. Conducting polymer ink is devised for scalable printing of micro-supercapacitor. 2. Rate capability is enhanced by 73.7% through embedding carboxylic MWCNTs. 3. Micro-supercapacitor with high energy density and good cyclic stability. 4. Capacitive contribution plays a dominant role according to quantitative calculation. 5. Proof-of-concept demonstration of various electronics as practical application.