by Keyword: Wearable electronics
Ruano, G., Díaz, A., Tononi, J., Torras, J., Puiggalí, J., Alemán, C., (2020). Biohydrogel from unsaturated polyesteramide: Synthesis, properties and utilization as electrolytic medium for electrochemical supercapacitors Polymer Testing 82, 106300
The utilization of hydrogels derived from biopolymers as solid electrolyte (SE) of electrochemical supercapacitors (ESCs) is a topic of increasing interest because of their promising applications in biomedicine (e.g. for energy storage in autonomous implantable devices). In this work an unsaturated polyesteramide that contains phenylalanine, butenediol and fumarate as building blocks has been photo-crosslinked to obtain a hydrogel (UPEA-h). The structure of UPEA-h, which is characterized by a network of open interconnected pores surrounded by regions with compact morphology, favors ion transport, while the biodegradability and biocompatibility conferred by the α-amino acid unit and the ester group are appropriated for its usage in the biomedical field. Voltammetric and galvanostatic assays have been conducted to evaluate the behavior of UPEA-h when used as SE in ESCs with poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) electrodes. Hence, PEDOT/UPEA-h devices displayed supercapacitor response of up 179 F/g and capacitance retention higher than 90%. Moreover, the long-term stability, leakage-current, and self-discharging response of PEDOT/UPEA-h ESCs reflect the great potential of UPEA-h as ion-conductive electrolyte. Indeed, the performance of PEDOT/UPEA-h is higher than found in analogous devices constructed using other biohydrogels as SE (e.g. κ-carrageenan, poly-γ-glutamic acid and cellulose hydrogels).
JTD Keywords: Energy storage, Hydrogel electronics, Ion conductivity, Photo-crosslinking, Wearable electronics
Saborío, M. G., Svelic, P., Casanovas, J., Ruano, G., Pérez-Madrigal, M. M., Franco, L., Torras, J., Estrany, F., Alemán, C., (2019). Hydrogels for flexible and compressible free standing cellulose supercapacitors European Polymer Journal 118, 347-357
Cellulose-based supercapacitors display important advantages in comparison with devices fabricated with other materials, regarding environmental friendliness, flexibility, cost and versatility. Recent progress in the field has been mainly focused on the utilization of cellulose fibres as: structural mechanical reinforcement of electrodes; precursors of electrically active carbon-based materials; or primary electrolytes that act as reservoirs of secondary electrolytes. In this work, a flexible, lightweight, robust, portable and manageable all-carboxymethyl cellulose symmetric supercapacitor has been obtained by assembling two electrodes based on carboxymethyl cellulose hydrogels to a solid electrolytic medium formulated with the same material. Hydrogels, which were made by cross-linking carboxymethyl cellulose paste with citric acid in water, rendered not only effective solid electrolytic media by simply loading NaCl but also electroactive electrodes. For the latter, conducting polymer microparticles, which were loaded into the hydrogel network during the physical cross-linking step, were appropriately connected through the in situ anodic polymerization of a similar conducting polymer in aqueous medium, thus creating conduction paths. The performance of the assembled supercapacitors has been proved by cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge-discharge and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. This design opens a new window for the green and mass production of flexible cellulose-based supercapacitors.
JTD Keywords: Conducting polymer, Energy storage, Flexible electrodes, In situ polymerization, Wearable electronics
