A study of 3D printed flexible supercapacitors onto silicone rubber substrates

Abstract

carbon-based materials have long been used as electrodes for EDLCs. Activated carbon (AC) is one of the most important commercial carbon materials being used as electrodes of EDLCs [2]. It is useful because of its high specific surface area, low-cost, an excellent synergy effect with additive materials and is easy to process. Recently, some attempts have been made to fabricate multiple material layers of the EDLC in one rapid and accurate deposition process [3]. Several fabrication processes have been used to fabricate flexible EDLCs and micro supercapacitors and reported in the literature including photolithography and an electrochemical deposition, a micro extrusion, coating, roll-to-roll printing, etc [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Compared to the method described here, other 3D printing methods are usually costly or not able to process all the materials necessary for making EDLCs, such as 3D selective laser melting machine [21]. 3D printing based on paste extrusion has been adopted for this study because it allows EDLCs to be fabricated in one single process including package sealing with various types of materials. In addition, EDLCs have been studied and manufactured by 3D direct-ink writing process, but the viscosity of the AC and silicone materials makes them unsuitable for this approach [22]. An important requirement of an EDLC nowadays is its ability to be highly flexible to meet the requirement for numerous applications. It is clear that some of these processes add little to the capacitance behaviour. Some need pre-treatment, e.g. the spray coating technique has a number of drawbacks like unevenness and a wide spread due to a high treatment temperature. The cost of fabrication is high and time-consuming when using the photolithography process. Limited electrode thicknesses and substrate are provided with the DVD burner process. Hence, these processes may not suit flexible EDLCs with a variety of material substrates, AC electrodes and gel electrolyte patterns and thicknesses. However, one of the major challenges of component Abstract The rapid development of flexible energy storage devices is crucial for various electronics industries. Highly flexible electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) can be manufactured by 3D printing technology. It was a great challenge to fabricate multiple material layers of the EDLC in one rapid and accurate deposition event. The fabricated structures were composed of twelve electrodes which could be configured in a number of different ways in one block module. This work aims to investigate the performance of the flexible EDLCs manufactured by 3D printing in a honeycomb pattern. The EDLC cells were fabricated using a slurry made from commercial activated carbon (AC) and a gel electrolyte deposited on a transparent silicone substrate. The flexible EDLCs structures can be used in flexible electronics with different patterns and sizes using 3D printer and can be applied to many applications such as wearable technology.

Moisture outgassing from siloxane elastomers containing surface-treated-silica fillers

“…Recently, they have been employed as additively manufactured (AM) foams of tailorable compositions and engineering properties. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15] In many applications, moisture outgassing is of concern when siloxane rubber is in contact with or in close proximity to moisture-sensitive components. In addition, moisture outgassing may result in degradation of interfacial polymer structures, lead to material incompatibility in the system, and compromise the mechanical properties of composite materials.…”

A self-healing, adaptive and conductive polymer composite ink for 3D printing of gas sensors

“…Recently, viscoelastic, conductive polymer composite inks have been attracting a growing attention in 3D-printed electronics 26 .…”

Why Cellulose‐Based Electrochemical Energy Storage Devices?

“…Cellulose‐based printed electrochemical energy storage devices are fabricated through various printing techniques, such as screen printing, [ 94–96 ] dispenser printing, [ 97,98 ] spray printing, [ 99–101 ] inkjet printing, [ 21,102–104 ] and others. Here, we briefly review recent advances in the cellulose‐based printed electrochemical energy storage devices, with a focus on supercapacitors and batteries.…”