Fabrication and characterisation of fabric supercapacitor

• Main Author: Yong, Sheng
• Other Authors: Beeby, Stephen
• Published: University of Southampton 2016
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.736653

Fabric supercapacitor is a flexible electrochemical device for energy storage application. It is designed to power up flexible electronic systems used for, for example, information sensing, data computation and communication. The development of a flexible supercapacitor is important for e-textiles since supercapacitor can achieve higher energy density than a standard parallel plate capacitor and a larger power density compared with a battery. This research area is currently facing barriers on improve the device fabrication performance/cost efficiency, electrode throughput and reduce the device packaging difficulty. This work presents research into fabric supercapacitor, including the basic theory of supercapacitors, review of previous fabric supercapacitor designs based on different materials and frication method and a description of the characterisation methods used to evaluate supercapacitors. The objective of this thesis is to propose the design, fabrication and characterization of prototype fabric supercapacitors with cost efficient electrode material, fast and reliable fabrication method and improved device structure. Within the thesis four prototype flexible supercapacitors with fabric electrode has been achieved: the multilayer layer supercapacitor with dip coated fabric electrode and aqueous electrolyte achieved a specific capacitance of 14.1 F.g-1 a low normalized equivalent series resistance (ESR) (Ω.cm) of 22 Ω.cm, the multilayer layer supercapacitor with spray coated fabric electrode and aqueous electrolyte achieved a specific capacitance of 15.3 F.g-1 a low normalized ESR of 20.8 Ω.cm, the two layer solid-state supercapacitor with spray coated fabric electrode and gel electrolyte achieved a specific capacitance of 15.4 F.g-1 a normalized ESR of 61.2 Ω.cm, the single layer solid-state supercapacitor with spray coated fabric electrode and gel electrolyte achieved a specific capacitance of 14.9 F.g-1 a normalized ESR of 183 Ω.cm. All of the supercapacitor presented in this thesis achieves an excellent cycling stability over 15000 cycles. At the end of the thesis several areas improvements will be discussed for further development.