Conductive, tough, hydrophilic poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene hybrid fibers for wearable supercapacitors

Graphene fibers based flexible supercapacitors have great potential as wearable power sources for textile electronics. However, their electrochemical performance is limited by the serious stacking of graphene sheets and their hydrophobicity in aqueous electrolytes. Meanwhile, their brittleness is unfavorable for practical application. Incorporation of nanofillers into graphene fibers has been proved effective for enhancing their capacitance, whereas often leading to deteriorated mechanical strength. Herein we demonstrate that the strength, toughness and capacitive performance of graphene-based fibers can be significantly enhanced simultaneously, simply by incorporating hydrophilic poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) into a non-liquid-crystalline graphene oxide (GO) dispersion before wet spinning and chemical reduction. The structure and properties of the resulted PVA/graphene hybrid fibers are systematically investigated, and the mechanism behind these enhancements is discussed in detail. The hybrid fiber with a PVA/GO weight ratio of 10/90 possesses a strength of 186 MPa, a toughness of 11.3 J cm(-3), and a capacitance of 241 F cm(-3) in 1 M H2SO4. A solid-state yarn supercapacitor assembled from these fibers exhibits a device energy of 5.97 mW h cm(-3), and features excellent flexibility and bending stability. This device is robust enough to be integrated into textile and thus promising as wearable power supply for smart textiles. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.