Chitosan-based oxygen-doped activated carbon/graphene composite for flexible supercapacitors

Flexible supercapacitors have attracted widespread attention from many researchers as a type of portable energy storage device. As a unique carbon material, graphene has shown great potential in supercapacitor electrodes, mainly due to its large theoretical specific surface area, high conductivity and chemical stability. Therefore, reasonable design of graphene-based hydrogels with low cost, high specific surface area, and excellent mechanical properties is of great significance for flexible and wearable energy storage device applications. Oxygen-doped activated carbon/graphene composite hydrogels have been fabricated using a one-step hydrothermal method. In the hybrid hydrogel, the activated carbon derived from chitosan with high specific surface area and oxygen-containing groups which were introduced by using a facile room-temperature oxidation strategy with HNO₃ are assembled into the framework of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) to effectively prevent the restacking of rGO nanosheets and result in high specific surface area and high conductivity of the composite hydrogels, thereby leading to an excellent energy storage performance. The optimal sample displayed a high specific capacitance of 375.7 F g^-1 in 1 M H₂SO₄ electrolyte at a current density of 1 A g^-1. Furthermore, the assembled flexible supercapacitor showed an ideal cycling stability of 83% after 5000 charge/discharge cycles at 10 A g^-1. The facile strategy developed in this work is of significance for the performance improvement of supercapacitor electrode materials.