Designing flexible, smart and self-sustainable supercapacitors for portable/wearable electronics: from conductive
Zhenyun Zhao1, Kequan Xia2, Yang Hou3
1State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China. lujianguo@zju.edu.cn.
Abstract:
The rapid development of portable/wearable electronics proposes new demands for energy storage devices, which are flexibility, smart functions and long-time outdoor operation. Supercapacitors (SCs) show great potential in portable/wearable applications, and the recently developed flexible, smart and self-sustainable supercapacitors greatly meet the above demands. In these supercapacitors, conductive polymers (CPs) are widely applied due to their high flexibility, conductivity, pseudo-capacitance, smart characteristics and moderate preparation conditions. Herein, we'd like to introduce the CP-based flexible, smart and self-sustainable supercapacitors for portable/wearable electronics. This review first summarizes the flexible SCs based on CPs and their composites with carbon materials and metal compounds. The smart supercapacitors, i.e., electrochromic, electrochemical actuated, stretchable, self-healing and stimuli-sensitive ones, are then presented. The self-sustainable SCs which integrate SC units with energy-harvesting units in one compact configuration are also introduced. The last section highlights some current challenges and future perspectives of this thriving field.
