Fabrication and Characterisation of Flexible Coaxial Thin Thread Supercapacitors

10.6493/SmartSci.2014.255

Fulian Qiu；David Harrison；John Fyson；Darren Southee

Supercapacitor ； Coaxial thread ； Energy storage ； Smart electronics ； Semi-automatic processing ； Carbon ink

Smart Science

2卷3期（2014 / 08 / 03）

107 - 115

英文

Flexible coaxial thin thread supercapacitors were fabricated semi-automatically using a dip coating method. A typical coaxial thin thread supercapacitor of a length of 70 cm demonstrated a specific length capacitance of 0.3 mF cm^(-1) (11.2 mF cm^(-2) and 2.18 F cm^(-3)) at 5 mV s^(-1), the device exhibited good electrochemical performance with a high volume energy density of 0.22 mWh cm^(-3) at a power density of 22 mW cm^(-3). Thread supercapacitors were assembled in series and parallel combinations, the accepted models for series and parallel circuit combinations were obeyed for two coaxial thread supercapacitors. The thread shows high flexibility and uniformity of specific length capacitance, one integrated with a commercial solar cell could be charged and power a LED. The process is simple, robust and easy to scale up to make unlimited length thread supercapacitors for numerous miniaturized and flexible electronic applications.