The ever-growing global demand of energy together with the depletion of fossil fuels makes it critical to develop sustainable and renewable energy resources. Developing relevant energy storage systems (e.g. batteries and supercapacitors) is essential to utilizing sustainable and renewable energy resources. A supercapacitor is highly beneficial in storing renewable energy. For example, when light is not shining or wind is not blowing, the energy needs to be stored in devices like batteries and supercapacitors. Among the efforts of building efficient supercapacitors, electrode materials with rational nanostructured designs have offered major improvements in performance over the past several years. This review article is intended to examine recent progress in nanostructuring supercapacitor electrode materials, highlighting the fundamental understanding of the relationship between structural properties and electrochemical performances, as well as an outlook on the next generation of nanostructured supercapacitor electrodes design. REVIEW This journal isSupercapacitors have drawn considerable attention in recent years due to their high specific power, long cycle life, and ability to bridge the power/energy gap between conventional capacitors and batteries/fuel cells. Nanostructured electrode materials have demonstrated superior electrochemical properties in producing high-performance supercapacitors. In this review article, we describe the recent progress and advances in designing nanostructured supercapacitor electrode materials based on various dimensions ranging from zero to three. We highlight the effect of nanostructures on the properties of supercapacitors including specific capacitance, rate capability and cycle stability, which may serve as a guideline for the next generation of supercapacitor electrode design.

This report demonstrates a simple, but efficient method to print highly ordered nanopillars without the use of sacrificial templates or any expensive equipment. The printed polymer structure is used as a scaffold to deposit electrode material (manganese dioxide) for making supercapacitors. The simplicity of the fabrication method together with superior power density and energy density make this supercapacitor electrode very attractive for the next-generation energy storage systems.

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We demonstrate the design and fabrication of a Ag/PEDOT:PSS/MnO2 layer by layer structure for high performance flexible supercapacitors.