Living cell-based ultrahigh-supercapacitive behaviours

Abstract

Reported biosupercapacitors are new, but their specific capacitances and power densities are pretty low. Inspired by the sudden blast of unusually high power by humans during emergencies, we propose a new conceptual living-cell-based ultrahigh performance supercapacitor made from bacteria accomplishing a supercapacitance of 1171 F g⁻¹ and energy density of 416 Wh kg⁻¹, which are exceptionally higher than all reported biosupercapacitors by 2 to 3 orders, and even comparable to the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, while retaining a high power of 387 kW kg⁻¹. We propose that 3 double layers in series in a living cell produce a wide potential window of 1.6 V, while millions of individual cell-based micro-supercapacitors in parallel result in ultrahigh supercapacitance. This new living-cell-based supercapacitor sheds fresh scientific light on the fabrication of extremely high energy devices while holding great promise for making highly-biocompatible high-power devices as a future energy source for artificial skin and implantable applications.