Wearable and Flexible All‐Solid‐State Supercapacitor Based on MXene and Chitin

Abstract

Biopolymer‐based materials have recently received great interest as potential components for wearable energy‐storage devices. They can offer attractive and valuable properties such as renewability, biocompatibility, thermal and chemical stability, flexibility, durability, and biodegradability. Herein, a wearable and flexible all‐solid‐state supercapacitor that uses chitin as a biocompatible scaffold for integrating all device components, such as electrodes and an electrolyte, is developed. Chitin provides mechanical stability to electrode materials and supports the ionic liquid‐based gel electrolyte, and it also acts as a bonding agent to integrate all those components. Additionally, titanium carbide MXene is used as an active material for the proposed power source device. The MXene/chitin‐based all‐solid‐state supercapacitor exhibits impressive electrochemical performance, showing outstanding electrode conductivity, high capacitance, low internal resistance, high power density, and long‐term cycling stability. Moreover, it provides highly desired features concerning wearable devices, that is, excellent flexibility and mechanical strength under bending deformations, as well as sustainability and biodegradability. As a proof of concept, the MXene/chitin‐base device is applied for powering an electronic gadget. Herein, an important step is represented toward power‐efficient, wearable, and sustainable energy‐storage devices.