Carbon fibre-reinforced poly(ethylene glycol) diglycidylether based multifunctional structural supercapacitor composites for electrical energy storage applications

Abstract

We have developed structural supercapacitors that can carry mechanical loads as well as can store electrochemical energy simultaneously. Structural supercapacitors are fabricated by impregnating carbon fibre mat electrodes and glass fibre mat separator with crosslinked poly(ethylene glycol) diglycidylether polymer electrolyte using the resin infusion under flexible tooling method. In this study, design parameters of the structural supercapacitors have been explored including the separators and the polymer electrolytes. The fabricated structural supercapacitors have been characterised using charge–discharge method and impedance spectroscopy to evaluate the electrochemical performance and in-plane shear properties to evaluate the mechanical performance. A structural supercapacitor, exhibiting a specific capacitance of 10.3 mF/cm3 and a shear modulus of 0.50 GPa simultaneously, have been fabricated.

Structural supercapacitors using a solid resin electrolyte with carbonized electrospun cellulose/carbon nanotube electrodes

“…The capacitive performance is generally not 'state-of-the-art' for structural supercapacitors, mainly because of the high resistance of the electrolyte matrix. Despite this, the capacitances of our electrode materials are still comparable with other recent studies [12,30]. It is important to note that to maximize the mechanical properties of the composite, a stiff matrix is required to give sufficient stress transfer to the fibres.…”

“…that an increase in the EMITFSI concentration results in increased ionic conductivity but decreased compression strength of PEGDGE electrolytes [30]. Similarly, in our study, the increased R s at 24 h compared to 2 h of curing of the electrolyte matrix also suggested that the higher degree of cross-linking is not good for the electrocapacitive performance.…”

“…and high mechanical properties. As laminated carbon fibre composites have a similar architecture to supercapacitors, woven carbon fibres have been chosen as electrodes for the fabrication of structural supercapacitors in recent years [20,30]. In order to further improve their performance, the incorporation of woven carbon fibres with a carbon aerogel, has been attempted to increase the electrodes' surface area and pore volume [12].…”

Improving the multifunctional behaviour of structural supercapacitors by incorporating chemically activated carbon fibres and mesoporous silica particles as reinforcement

“…Moreover, the supercapacitors have long cycle life of tens of thousands of charge–discharge cycles. 14 The repeated charge–discharge cycles of the fabricated structural supercapacitors, with as-received CF electrodes, have been previously investigated, 41 and the structural supercapacitors showed excellent reversibility of charge storage process.…”

Electrochemical performance evaluation of tin oxide nanorod-embedded woven carbon fiber composite supercapacitor

“…In addition to that, the size and concentration of electrolyte ion and electrolyte stability are also crucial factors. The glass fiber was reported as good separator material when considering both electrochemical and mechanical perspectives . In this process, therefore, the 1 layer of glass fiber was sandwiched into 2 prepared hybrid SnO 2 ‐WCF electrodes as separator.…”