Wearable Supercapacitor Based on Metal Oxide Grown Carbon Fiber Electrodes

Abstract

Increasing development of wearable consumer electronics necessitates the development of flexible energy storage devices for powering them. Supercapacitor is one such energy storage devices offering light weight, safe operation, good charge/discharge capabilities and high cycle life. Choosing the right current collector substrate play a vital role in developing wearable energy storage devices as it should be easy in integrating to the everyday attire. The present study includes the syntheses and characterizations of flexible and high-performance supercapacitors manufactured with metal oxide grown carbon fiber electrodes. Low-cost transition metal oxides such as manganese oxide and molybdenum oxide with excellent electrochemical properties are used as active electrode materials in our work. The electrode manufacturing process followed is a facile, direct growth electrodeposition process eliminating the need for dead binders typically used in supercapacitors. The electrodes synthesized are characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Asymmetric supercapacitor is fabricated and tested by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and galvanostatic charge/discharge measurements. The bending test done on the assembled supercapacitor showing very less capacitance degardation demonstrated its flexible nature at different bending angles. This study demonstarted that fibre supercapacitor presented here is a potential energy storage candidate, which can easily be integrated with wearable electronic devices.