Surface Functionalization of Carbon Fiber for High-Performance Fibrous Supercapacitor

Fibrous supercapacitors (FSs), owing to their high power density, good safety characteristic, and high flexibility, have recently been in the spotlight as energy storage devices for wearable electronics. However, despite these advantages, FCs face many challenges related to their active material of carbon fiber (CF). CF has low surface area and poor wettability between electrode and electrolyte, which result in low capacitance and poor long-term stability at high current densities. To overcome these limits, fibrous supercapacitors made using surface-activated CF (FS-SACF) are here suggested; these materials have improved specific surface area and better wettability, obtained by introducing porous structure and oxygen-containing functional groups on the CF surface, respectively, through surface engineering. The FS-SACF shows an improved ion diffusion coefficient and better electrochemical performance, including high specific capacity of 223.6 mF cm(-2) at current density of 10 mu A cm(-2), high-rate performance of 171.2 mF cm(-2) at current density of 50.0 mu A cm(-2), and remarkable, ultrafast cycling stability (96.2 % after 1,000 cycles at current density of 250.0 mu A cm(-2)). The excellent electrochemical performance is definitely due to the effects of surface functionalization on CF, leading to improved specific surface area and superior ion diffusion capability.

Automated summary

Fibrous supercapacitors face challenges due to the active material of carbon fiber, but surface-activated CF can improve their performance.