Deep eutectic solvent-based supramolecular gel polymer electrolytes for high-performance electrochemical double layer capacitors

Abstract

Gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) can avoid the electrolyte leakage risk of electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs). But aqueous GPEs often suffer from narrow electrochemical windows. Herein, a series of deep eutectic solvent (DES)-based supramolecular GPEs are firstly developed for carbon-based EDLCs with wide voltage windows. The as-fabricated DES-based GPE shows an ionic conductivity of ~58 mS cm−1, which makes the stable voltage window of a carbon-based EDLC reach 2.4 V. The carbon-based EDLC exhibits a specific capacitance of 32.1 F g−1, an energy density of 24.6 Wh kg−1 and a capacitance retention of ~90% after 15,000 charge-discharge cycles. Moreover, when quinhydrone is added into the DES-based GPE, the specific capacitance and energy density of the corresponding EDLC can be further expanded to 60 F g−1 and 43.6 Wh kg−1, respectively. Therefore, our work may present a universal strategy to prepare novel supramolecular GPEs for high-performance EDLCs with wide voltage windows.