Flexible and Conductive Polymer Threads for Efficient Fiber-Shaped Supercapacitors via Vapor Copolymerization

Jing Hu; Bo Gao; Qi Qi; Zhuang Zuo; Kai Yan; Shaocong Hou; Dechun Zou

doi:10.1021/acsomega.1c05717

Flexible and Conductive Polymer Threads for Efficient Fiber-Shaped Supercapacitors via Vapor Copolymerization

ACS Omega. 2022 Sep 3;7(36):31628-31637. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c05717. eCollection 2022 Sep 13.

Authors

Jing Hu¹, Bo Gao¹, Qi Qi¹, Zhuang Zuo¹, Kai Yan², Shaocong Hou³, Dechun Zou^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of Ministry of Education, Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
² Zhejiang Huacai Testing Technology Co., Ltd, Hangzhou 310012, China.
³ School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
⁴ Beijing Engineering Research Center for Active Matrix Display, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.

Abstract

Flexible fiber electrodes are critical for high-performance fiber and wearable electronics. In this work, we presented a highly conductive all-polymer fiber electrode by vapor copolymerization of 2,5-dibromo-3,4-vinyldioxythiophene (DBEDOT) and 2,5-diiodo-3,4-vinyldioxythiophene (DIEDOT) monomers on commonly used polyester threads (PETs) at a temperature as low as 80 °C. The poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT)-coated PET threads maintain excellent flexibility and show conductivity of 7.93 S cm^-1, nearly four times higher than that reported previously via homopolymerization of DBEDOT monomer. A MnO₂ active layer was embedded into the PEDOT double layers, and the flexible fiber composite electrode showed a high linear specific capacitance of 157 mF cm^-1 and improved stability, retaining 86.5% capacitance after 5000 cycles. Fiber-shaped solid-state supercapacitors (FSSCs) based on the composite electrodes were assembled, and they displayed superior electrochemical performance. This work provides a new approach to realize high-performance and stable wearable electronics.