Yu Fei, Li Jialun, Jiang Yi, Wang Liying, Yang Xijia, Li Xuesong, Lü Wei, Sun Xiaojuan
Key Laboratory of Advanced Structural Materials, Ministry of Education & Advanced Institute of Materials Science, Changchun University of Technology, Changchun 130012, People's Republic of China.
School of Science, Changchun Institute of Technology, Changchun 130012, China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 May 10. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c03124.
While flexible supercapacitors with high capacitance and energy density is highly desired for outdoor wearable electronics, their application under low-temperature environments, like other energy storage devices, remains an urgent challenge. Solar thermal energy converts solar light into heat and has been extensively applied for solar desalination and power generation. In the present work, to address the failure problem of energy storage devices in a cold environment, solar thermal energy was used to improve flexible supercapacitor performance at low temperature. As a proof of concept presented here, a typical all-solid-state supercapacitor composed of activated carbon electrodes and gel polymer electrolyte was coated by a carbonized melamine sponge. Due to the ability of photothermal conversion of carbonized melamine sponge, the capacitance of the supercapacitor was greatly enhanced, which could be further improved by adding surface plasmonic nanomaterials, for example, Ag nanowires. Compared with the device without photothermal conversion layers, the specific capacitance increased 3.48 times at -20 °C and retained 87% capacitance at room temperature and the specific capacitance increased 6.69 times at -50 °C and retained 73% capacitance at room temperature. The present work may provide new insights on the application of solar energy and the design of energy storage devices with excellent low-temperature resistance.
虽然具有高电容和能量密度的柔性超级电容器对于户外可穿戴电子产品来说是非常需要的，但与其他储能设备一样，它们在低温环境下的应用仍然是一个紧迫的挑战。太阳能热能将太阳光转化为热能，并已广泛应用于太阳能海水淡化和发电。在目前的工作中，为了解决储能设备在寒冷环境中的失效问题，利用太阳能热能来提高柔性超级电容器在低温下的性能。作为这里提出的概念验证，一种由活性炭电极和凝胶聚合物电解质组成的典型全固态超级电容器被碳化三聚氰胺海绵包覆。由于碳化三聚氰胺海绵的光热转换能力，超级电容器的电容大大提高，通过添加表面等离子体纳米材料（例如银纳米线）可以进一步提高。与没有光热转换层的器件相比，在-20°C时比电容增加了3.48倍，在室温下保留了87%的电容；在-50°C时比电容增加了6.69倍，在室温下保留了73%的电容。目前的工作可能为太阳能的应用以及具有优异耐低温性的储能设备的设计提供新的见解。
