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Semi-Interpenetrating Polymer Networks for Enhanced Supercapacitor Electrodes

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Fong, KD 
Kim, HK 
Kumar, RV 
Smoukov, SK 

Abstract

Conducting polymers show great promise as supercapacitor materials due to their high theoretical specific capacitance, low cost, toughness, and flexibility. Poor ion mobility, however, can render active material more than a few tens of nanometers from the surface inaccessible for charge storage, limiting performance. Here, we use semi-interpenetrating networks (sIPNs) of a pseudocapacitive polymer in an ionically conductive polymer matrix to decrease ion diffusion length scales and make virtually all of the active material accessible for charge storage. Our freestanding poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(ethylene oxide) (PEDOT/PEO) sIPN films yield simultaneous improvements in three crucial elements of supercapacitor performance: specific capacitance (182 F/g, a 70% increase over that of neat PEDOT), cycling stability (97.5% capacitance retention after 3000 cycles), and flexibility (the electrodes bend to a <200 μm radius of curvature without breaking). Our simple and controllable sIPN fabrication process presents a framework to develop a range of polymer-based interpenetrated materials for high-performance energy storage technologies.

Description

Keywords

0912 Materials Engineering, 0306 Physical Chemistry (incl. Structural), 0303 Macromolecular and Materials Chemistry

Journal Title

ACS Energy Letters

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2380-8195
2380-8195

Volume Title

2

Publisher

American Chemical Society
Sponsorship
European Research Council (280078)
EPSRC (1566990)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L015889/1)
This work was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) grant to S.K.S., EMATTER (# 280078). K.D.F. acknowledges support from the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States. T.W. thanks the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for funding and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the U.K. (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Sensor Technologies and Applications (Grant Number: EP/L015889/1) for support.
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