Carboxymethyl chitosan doped hydrogel electrolyte with wide temperature domain for high performance flexible...

The flexible energy storage devices are more challenging because they not only need to perform well in terms of electrochemical properties, but also need to exhibit wide temperature domain and good mechanical properties. Herein, we prepare a novel wide temperature flexible polyacrylamide (PAM)/carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS)/polyethylene glycol (PEG)‑sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) hydrogel electrolyte (PAM/CMCS/PEG-H₂SO₄) by one-step free radical polymerization method using PAM as the polymer matrix, CMCS as blend material and PEG as functional additive. Among them, CMCS contains numerous -OH and -NH₂ groups, which can cross-link PAM and PEG to form network and bond with water molecules, making the hydrogel has excellent performance. The optimized PAM/CMCS/PEG-H₂SO₄ hydrogel has a tensile strain about 800 % and high conductivity in the temperature ranges from -10 to 90 °C. The flexible supercapacitor assembled with commercial AC as electrode, PAM/CMCS/PEG-H₂SO₄ hydrogel as electrolyte exhibits good cycle life with capacitance retention rate of 83.3 % after 5000 charge/discharge cycles. In addition, the device exhibits excellent electrochemical performance under wide temperature domain and various bending angles.