Issue 40, 2022

Soft, flexible and self-healable supramolecular conducting polymer-based hydrogel electrodes for flexible supercapacitors

Abstract

Conducting polymer-based hydrogels have drawn great attention recently as stretchable and soft electrode materials for flexible supercapacitors, for wearable electronics applications. In this work, we strategically combined a supramolecular approach and the ARGET–ATRP grafting methodology to prepare stretchable and self-healable poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT)-based conductive hydrogels with excellent electrochemical and mechanical properties. The supramolecular assembly of thiophene-3-boronic acid (ThBA) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), via dynamic boronate bonds, provides robustness for the PEDOT-based hydrogel. The hydrogen bonds between poly(acrylic acid) (PAA)-grafted-thiophene and PVA offer the fast self-healing properties to the hydrogel when exposed to mild pressures. After integrating the PAA-grafted-thiophene/PVA-based hydrogel with the self-healable, borate ester cross-linked PVA hydrogel electrolyte, the formed supercapacitor structure exhibits a specific capacitance of 222.32 mF cm−2, with an energy density of 19.8 μW h cm−2. The PEDOT-based hydrogel exhibits excellent electrochemical stability with 95.8% capacitance retention after 1000 charging–discharging cycles and a good capacitance recovery rate of 78.3% after the cutting–healing cycle. The utilisation of a supramolecular approach and the ARGET–ATRP grafting methodology could guide future developments in intrinsically stretchable and self-healable materials for wearable bioelectronics. The developed, intrinsically flexible and self-healable energy-storage device has potential for applications in the next generation of epidermal bioelectronics or other wearable electronics devices.

Graphical abstract: Soft, flexible and self-healable supramolecular conducting polymer-based hydrogel electrodes for flexible supercapacitors

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Aug. 2022
Accepted
20 Sept. 2022
First published
20 Sept. 2022

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022,10, 14882-14891

Soft, flexible and self-healable supramolecular conducting polymer-based hydrogel electrodes for flexible supercapacitors

B. Zhu, E. W. C. Chan, S. Y. Li, X. Sun and J. Travas-Sejdic, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022, 10, 14882 DOI: 10.1039/D2TC03239B

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