Elastic and wearable ring-type supercapacitors

Abstract

The development of flexible energy storage devices is critical while it remains challenging for wearable electronics. Herein, a new family of elastic and wearable ring-type supercapacitors is fabricated by winding aligned carbon nanotube/poly(3,4-ethyl-enedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) composite sheets onto an elastic polymer ring. The supercapacitor delivers a high specific capacitance of 134.8 F g⁻¹ at a current density of 1 A g⁻¹. Importantly, the specific capacitance has been well maintained after expanding and pressing, which endows the supercapacitor with unique advantages, e.g., it can be used for substrates with different sizes and shapes and may satisfy a variety of wearable applications as well as other fields.