Supercapacitors based on AC/MnO2 deposited onto dip-coated carbon nanofiber cotton fabric electrodes

This work introduces the preparation of flexible carbon composite electrodes based on the top-down approach starting from the dip-coating of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) onto a cotton fabric. On these so-obtained conductive cotton fabrics, further layers of activated carbon and manganese oxide (MnO2) materials were subsequently added to enhance the electrochemical performances of negative and positive electrodes. At the end, two different types of asymmetric supercapacitors (SCs) were assembled with those textile electrodes by using porous paper and Nafion-Na ion-exchange membranes as separators. The different SCs were electrochemically characterized by means of cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge/discharge (G–CD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). These hybrid carbon-based textile SCs exhibited capacitance performance of 138 and 134 F g–1 with the porous paper and Nafion membrane, respectively, and low self-discharge rates. Furthermore, in this study is considered the combination of two methods (cycling and floating) for studying the long-term durability tests of SCs. In particular, the floating methodology utilizes much more harsh conditions than the common cycling based on G-CD tests at high currents usually discussed in literature. The solid-state (Nafion membrane) hybrid device demonstrated very long durability with 10 K cycles and additional 270 h at a constant voltage of 1.6 V. In summary, the hybrid SCs fabricated with low cost materials and simple methodologies reported in this study showed very promising results for flexible energy storage applications. This work was partly financed by FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Programme - COMPETE and by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology (project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136). A.J. Paleo acknowledges the European COST Action CA15107- Multi-Functional Nano-Carbon Composite Materials Network (MultiComp) for its support with a Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) grant at CNR-ITAE of Messina.