Toward fully processable micro-supercapacitors

Abstract

Micro-supercapacitors are attracting increasing attention due to their potential applications in multiple real-world energy scenarios such as wearable electronic devices, powering the internet of things, and medical applications. While tremendous efforts are being made in the performance enhancement, one of the bottleneck issues inhibiting their upscaling is the complicated manufacturing process. In this issue of Joule, Bruce Dunn and colleagues demonstrated a fully processable micro-supercapacitor engaging a photopatternable hydroxide ion conducting solid electrolyte, which is thermally and dimensionally stable with a high conductivity of 10 mS cm−1.The micro-supercapacitor composites of VN and NiCo2O4 electrodes and the [AMIM][OH]/SU-8 hydroxide-conducting solid electrolyte show high areal capacitance of 250 mF cm−2 at 20 mV s−1 sweep rate, which is one of the highest performances among reported results. Micro-supercapacitors are attracting increasing attention due to their potential applications in multiple real-world energy scenarios such as wearable electronic devices, powering the internet of things, and medical applications. While tremendous efforts are being made in the performance enhancement, one of the bottleneck issues inhibiting their upscaling is the complicated manufacturing process. In this issue of Joule, Bruce Dunn and colleagues demonstrated a fully processable micro-supercapacitor engaging a photopatternable hydroxide ion conducting solid electrolyte, which is thermally and dimensionally stable with a high conductivity of 10 mS cm−1.The micro-supercapacitor composites of VN and NiCo2O4 electrodes and the [AMIM][OH]/SU-8 hydroxide-conducting solid electrolyte show high areal capacitance of 250 mF cm−2 at 20 mV s−1 sweep rate, which is one of the highest performances among reported results. Photopatternable hydroxide ion electrolyte for solid-state micro-supercapacitorsChoi et al.JouleJuly 23, 2021In BriefOne potential direction for achieving better integration with miniaturized electronics is to develop a photopatternable electrochemical energy storage system. To meet this objective, a photopatternable hydroxide-conducting electrolyte was developed via covalent grafting of polymerizable cations onto photopatternable polymer hosts, followed by anion exchange to incorporate hydroxides. The resulting solid electrolyte is thermally and dimensionally stable and has high hydroxide ion conductivity. For device integration, the hydroxide-conducting solid electrolyte was directly patterned onto vanadium nitride micro-supercapacitor electrodes. Full-Text PDF