Towards sustainable solid-state supercapacitors: Electroactive conducting polymers combined with biohydrogels

Solid-state organic electrochemical supercapacitors (OESCs) have been fabricated using poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) electrodes, a biohydrogel as electrolyte system, and polyaniline fibers as redox additive. The effectivity of sodium alginate, κ-carrageenan, chitosan and gelatin hydrogels...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Pérez-Madrigal, María M., Estrany, Francesc, Armelin, Elaine A., Díaz Díaz, David, Alemán, Carlos
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2016
Country:España
Institution:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repository:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/178064
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/178064
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Polyaniline
Polypyrroles
Supercapacitor electrode
Capacitors
Conducting polymers
Description
Summary:Solid-state organic electrochemical supercapacitors (OESCs) have been fabricated using poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) electrodes, a biohydrogel as electrolyte system, and polyaniline fibers as redox additive. The effectivity of sodium alginate, κ-carrageenan, chitosan and gelatin hydrogels as electrolytic media has been evaluated considering different criteria. Results indicate that κ-carrageenan-based hydrogel is the most suitable to perform as electrolyte due to the appropriate combination of properties: mechanical stability, ease of preparation, lack of water leaking, and good medium for the electrochemical response of PEDOT electrodes. Cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge-discharge assays indicate that OESCs based on PEDOT electrodes and κ-carrageenan hydrogel as electrolyte exhibits a good supercapacitor response in terms of specific capacitance, cycling stability, small leakage current and low self-discharging tendency. On the basis of these good properties, four OESC devices were assembled in series and used to power a red LED, confirming that, in addition to advantageous characteristics (e.g. elimination of liquid leaking and enhancement of the device compactness), the designed biohydrogel-containing OESC exhibits potential for practical applications. On the other hand, preliminary assays have been performed loading the κ-carrageenan hydrogel with polyaniline nanofibers, which act as a redox additive. OESC devices prepared using such loaded biohydrogel have been found to be very promising and, therefore, future work is oriented towards the improvement of their design. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.