Transforming Pristine Carbon Fiber Tows into High Performance Solid-State Fiber Supercapacitors

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Energy Storage

Background:

• Carbon fiber materials are crucial for developing advanced energy storage devices.
• Developing high-performance, cost-effective electrodes is essential for supercapacitor technology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a facile activation strategy for transforming pristine carbon fiber tows into high-performance fiber electrodes.
• To evaluate the electrochemical performance of the resulting fiber supercapacitors.

Main Methods:

• Activation of pristine carbon fiber tows using a straightforward strategy.
• Fabrication and electrochemical testing of knottable fiber supercapacitors.

Main Results:

• Achieved a specific capacitance of 14.2 F cm(-3) for the activated carbon fiber electrodes.
• Demonstrated an energy density of 0.35 mW h cm(-3) and an ultrahigh power density of 3000 mW cm(-3).
• Exhibited remarkable capacitance retention of 68% over a wide scan rate range (10 to 1000 mV s(-1)).

Conclusions:

• The facile activation strategy effectively enhances carbon fiber properties for supercapacitor applications.
• The developed fiber supercapacitors show promising performance characteristics for high-power energy storage.
• Knottable fiber supercapacitors represent a viable technology for flexible and high-performance energy storage.