Storing Energy in Biodegradable Electrochemical Supercapacitors

Abstract

The development of green and biodegradable electrical components is one of the main fronts of research to overcome the growing ecological problem related to the issue of electronic waste. At the same time, such devices are highly desirable in biomedical applications such as integrated bioelectronics, for which biocompatibility is also required. Supercapacitors for storage of electrochemical energy, designed only with biodegradable organic matter would contemplate both aspects, that is, they would be ecologically harmless after their service lifetime and would be an important component for applications in biomedical engineering. By means of atomistic simulations of molecular dynamics, we propose a supercapacitor whose electrodes are formed exclusively by self-organizing peptides and whose electrolyte is a green amino acid ionic liquid. Our results indicate that this supercapacitor has a high potential for energy storage with superior performance than conventional supercapacitors. In particular its capacity to store energy was estimated to be almost 20 times greater than an analogue one of planar metallic electrodes.

The Evolution of Flexible Electronics: From Nature, Beyond Nature, and To Nature

“…To this end, biodegradable or bioresorbable energy harvesters and storage are critically responsible to alleviate the environmental and demic burden induced by ewaste, with the ability to be dissolved, decomposed, or adsorbed and thus go to the nature after finishing their missions. [198][199][200][201][202] The biodegradability of flexible energy harvesters and storage can be realized by biodegradable materials derived from the nature, [203][204][205] soluble metals, [206] and biodegradable polymers, [207,208] which could disappear completely over a pre-scribed time by a controlled external stimuli including light, temperature, pH, and humidity to initiate the dissolution and degradation of electronics components. Chen et al [209] demonstrated an all-wood asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) based on activated wood carbon (AWC) as anode, thin wood membrane as separator and MnO 2 /wood carbon (MnO 2 @WC) as cathode (Figure 11a).…”

“…To this end, biodegradable or bioresorbable energy harvesters and storage are critically responsible to alleviate the environmental and demic burden induced by e‐waste, with the ability to be dissolved, decomposed, or adsorbed and thus go to the nature after finishing their missions. [ 198–202 ]…”

Chirality in peptide‐based materials: From chirality effects to potential applications

“…[111][112][113] Several research groups have modulated the selfassembly behaviors of chiral peptides and controlled the morphology and performance of peptide-based electronic systems. [114][115][116] In 2018, Hu et al 117 reported an electrochemical supercapacitor based on the self-assembling structure of a cyclic pentapeptide (i.e., Ac-CAAAS 5 (X)-NH 2 , X denotes the in-tether group) (Figure 11A). Specific in-tether groups such as aromatic phenyl and naphthyl, combined with R epimers, promoted the process of self-assembly, thus generating tetragonal-shaped belts and tubes tens of micrometers in length and several micrometers in diameter (Figure 11B).…”

Molecular dynamic simulations, GIAO‐NMR and TD‐DFT spectroscopy analyze for zwitterionic isoleucine (ILE)N, 1 ≤ N ≤ 6, in water solution

“…In recent years, there has been an increase in interest for biological molecules especially amino acids, which has had great appeal for the manufacture of new nanomaterials and applications. In this regard, the determination of spectroscopic properties and the possible dependence of these properties on amino acid chain growth becomes an important point for applications of these new nanomaterials whether in the membranes research [1][2][3][4] or self-assemble properties [5][6][7][8] , energy storage 9 or even pharmaceutical applications [10][11][12] . In this article, we focus on the amino acid Isoleucine (ILE) which has a characteristic hydrophobic structure and has a high β-sheet formation potential compared to the other amino acids.…”