Superelastic active graphene aerogels dried in natural environment for sensitive supercapacitor-type stress sensor

Abstract

A superelastic and active graphene aerogel with nitrogen and boron co-modification is developed by a simple naturally drying post-process. The resulting aerogel owns a robust three-dimensional architecture which exhibits highly repeatable compressibility even under 80% strain. In addition, the aerogel material offers a high specific capacitance of 336 F g−1 at 0.25 A g−1, the energy density of 13.99 Wh kg−1 at the power density of 47.25 W kg−1, and 90.74% specific capacitance retention even after 2000 cycles. Based on the symmetrical aerogel electrodes in a supercapacitor-type device structure, a facile novel self-powered stress sensor is developed. In the external stress load ranging from 0.05 to 10 N, the charged sensor demonstrates rapid current response, good linear relationship between log(I) and log(T), and outstanding cycle stability. The unique preparation and sensor application may lead to new exploitation for graphene aerogel in future electronic device.