Mulberry Paper-Based Supercapacitor Exhibiting High Mechanical and Chemical Toughness for Large-Scale Energy Storage Applications

Abstract

In response to the demand for flexible and sustainable energy storage devices that exhibit high electrochemical performance, a supercapacitor system is fabricated using mulberry tree-derived paper as a substrate and Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly( styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and carbon black as the active material. The mulberry paper-based supercapacitor system demonstrates high energy density of 29.8-39.8 Wh kg(-1) and power density of 2.8-13.9 kW kg(-1) with 90.7% retention of its initial capacity over 15 000 charge-discharge cycles. In addition, the mulberry tree fibers are known to have superior mechanical strength and toughness and the mulberry paper-based supercapacitor; as a result, exhibit high mechanical and chemical toughness; 99% of its initial capacity is retained after 100 repeated applications of bending strains, and twisting. 94% capacity retention is observed even after exposure to HCl and H2SO4 acid solutions. The fabrication methodology of the mulberry-based supercapacitor is highly scalable and could be stacked to increase the energy storage capacity, where operation of light-emitting diode lights with a drive voltage of 12 V integrated in a wearable device is demonstrated.