Ultrastretchable and superior healable supercapacitors based on a double cross-linked hydrogel electrolyte

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 536
• Main Authors: Li, Huili, Lv, Tian, Sun, Huanhuan, Qian, Guiju, Li, Ning, Yao, Yao, Chen, Tao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 01.02.2019; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: Alcohols; Crosslinking; Electrolytes; Graphene; Hydrogels; I.R. radiation; Infrared heating; Ion currents; Irradiation; Light irradiation; Polyvinyl alcohol; Portable equipment; Stretchability; Supercapacitors
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08320-z

Due to inherently poor healable and stretchable features, the most explored polyvinyl alcohol-based gel electrolytes cannot well meet the requirements of stretchable, healable and multifunctional supercapacitors. Here, we report a hydrogel of a copolymer cross-linked by double linkers of Laponite (synthetic hectorite-type clay) and graphene oxide. The resultant hydrogel shows high mechanical stretchability, excellent ionic conductivity, and superior healable performance. Along with designing wrinkled-structure electrodes, supercapacitors fabricated by using this hydrogel as a gel electrolyte not only exhibit ultrahigh mechanical stretchability of 1000%, but also achieve repeated healable performance under treatments of both infrared light irradiation and heating. More significantly, a broken/healed supercapacitor also possesses an ultrahigh stretchability up to 900% with slight performance decay. This hydrogel electrolyte could be easily functionalized by introducing other functional components, and extended for use in other portable and wearable energy related devices with multifunction.