Sub-Second Joule-Heated RuO2-Decorated Nitrogen- and Sulfur-Doped Graphene Fibers for Flexible Fiber-type Supercapacitors.

Abstract

Graphene-based fiber-shaped supercapacitors (FSSCs) have received considerable attention as potential wearable energy storage devices owing to their simple operating mechanism, flexibility, and long-term stability. To date, energy storage capacities of supercapacitors have been significantly improved via strategies such as heteroatom doping and the incorporation of pseudocapacitive metal oxides. Herein, we develop a novel and scalable direct-hybridization method that combines heteroatom doping and metal oxide hybridization for the fabrication of high-performance FSSCs. Using porous and highly conductive nitrogen and sulfur co-doped graphene fibers (NS-GFs) as self-heating units, we successfully convert ruthenium hydroxide anchored to the surface into ruthenium oxide nanoparticles after programmed sub-second electrothermal annealing without structural damage of the fibers. The resulting fibers show an increased gravimetric capacitance of 68.88 F g-1 compared to that of the pristine NS-GF (8.32 F g-1), excellent cyclic stability maintaining 96.67% of the initial capacitance after 20 000 continuous charging/discharging cycles, and good mechanical flexibility. The findings of this work advocate a successful Joule heating strategy for preparing high-performance graphene-based metal oxide hybrid FSSCs for use in energy storage applications.