Fabrication and characterization of smart fabric using energy storage fibres

Fibre supercapacitors were designed and manufactured using a dip-coating method. Their electrochemical properties were characterized using a VersaSTAT 3 workstation. Chinese ink with a fine dispersion of carbon and binder was coated as the electrode material. The specific capacitance per unit length of a copper fibre supercapacitor with the length of 41 cm reached 34.5 mF/cm. When this fibre supercapacitor was bent on rods with a diameter of 10.5 cm, the specific capacitance per length was 93% of the original value (without bending). It showed that these fibre supercapacitors have good flexibility and energy storage capacity. Furthermore, the fibre supercapacitor in the fabric showed the same capacitance before and after weaving.The European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement no. [281063]

A study of the electrochemical performance of strip supercapacitors under bending conditions

© 2016 The Authors. In recent years, much effort has been spent developing thin, lightweight and flexible energy storage devices to meet the various requirements of modern smart electronics. In this work, thin strip supercapacitors were successfully developed using activated carbon as the active electrode material. The electrochemical performance of these strip supercapacitors has been studied under mechanical bending conditions. The results indicate that the strip supercapacitor was functional under bending conditions between the bending angles of 30° to 150°. The capacitance of the sample was still about 70% of the original capacitance at different bending angles. This suggests the strip supercapacitor developed has a reasonable flexibility. Simulation model of equivalent circuit was established to analyze the charge transfer resistance (CTR) and equivalent series resistance (ESR) results in electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) testing. The correlation between the capacitance and the resistance of the strip supercapacitor under bending conditions was investigated and obtained.The European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 28106

Fabrication and characterisation of energy storage fibres

Fibre supercapacitors were designed and manufactured using a dip coating method. Their electrochemical properties were characterised using a VersaSTAT 3 workstation. Chinese ink with a fine dispersion of carbon and binder was coated as the electrode material. The specific capacitance per unit length of a copper fibre supercapacitor with the length of 41 cm reached 34.5 mF/cm. When this fibre supercapacitor was bent on rods with a diameter of 10.5 cm, the specific capacitance per length was 93% of the original value (without bending). It proved that these fibre supercapacitors have a good flexibility and energy storage capacity

Flexible strip supercapacitors for future energy storage

Flexible strip supercapacitors are developed and their electrochemical properties are characterized. Activated carbon is used as the electrode material and it is found to have a good porous structure which provides a large surface area for energy storage. Furthermore, this activated carbon performs well. The manufacturing processes for the supercapacitors are described in detail and the preparation process has good reproducibility. The strip supercapacitors are combined in series and parallel to measure their electrical properties. The performances of these two samples in series or in parallel both follow the theoretical models. The electrochemical potential window of a series circuit of these two strip supercapacitors is 4.8 V. The energy and power of the series or parallel circuits are equal to the sums of the two strip supercapacitors’