Turning cotton into tough energy textile via metal oxide assisted carbonization

• Published in: Carbon (New York) Vol. 153; pp. 257 - 264
• Main Authors: Lam, Do Van, Won, Sejeong, Shim, Hyung Cheoul, Kim, Jae-Hyun, Lee, Seung-Mo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2019; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Carbonization; Cotton; Cotton fabrics; Energy storage; Flux density; Lithium batteries; Metal impregnation; Metal oxides; Microstructure; Phase transitions; Porosity; Pyrolysis; Supercapacitor; Textile energy storage; Textiles; Wearable computers; Carbonization; Supercapacitor; Textile energy storage; Cotton; Metal impregnation
• ISSN: 0008-6223; 1873-3891
• DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2019.07.010

Cotton is established as an innovative foundation for smart wearable energy storage devices with appealing properties. The challenge is that the current approaches using either additional coating or direct carbonization mostly lead to mechanically fragile or electrochemically poor textile. We demonstrate that the coating of metal oxide on the cotton and subsequent pyrolysis readily turn cotton into conductive textile with high porosity and excellent toughness. The resulting textile has the energy density of 2.24 mWh/cm3 (nearly 3 times higher than other commercial supercapacitors) and the power density of 585 mW/cm3 (over 2-orders-of-magnitude higher than that of the lithium battery). We show that the metal oxide assisted carbonization allows metal atoms to migrate into the graphite-like layers of the carbonized cotton. It appears that the migrated metal atoms and the phase transformation of the coated metal oxides play a critical role in considerable changes in the microstructure and porosity of the carbonized cotton. Metal oxide assisted carbonization enables cotton to be turned into tough energy textile with high energy storage performance. [Display omitted]