Joung Eun Yoo1 and Joonho Bae2*
1Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
2Department of Nano-physics, Gachon University, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, 461-701, Republic of Korea
We report novel and simple structure of supercapacitors fabricated by using flexible
glass fibre separators as templates. This method does not require separate electrodes, binders
and high pressure/temperature to build the supercapacitor unit cells as required by the conventional
technology. The supercapacitors were fabricated by drop-casting solution mixtures of carbonaceous
active materials/gel electrolytes onto two sides of glass fibre separators. Two
carbonaceous materials (nanoscaled activated carbons, multi-walled carbon nanotubes) were
investigated as electrode materials. The electrochemical measurements reveal that the separatorbased
supercapacitors using ACs successfully demonstrated significant mass specific capacitance
(22.3 F g?1) and energy density (9.7Wh kg?1), indicating this method can be useful in fabricating
flexible, wearable and stretchable energy storage devices in more straightforward and
cost-effective way than current technology.
Keyword : supercapacitors, activated carbons, carbon nanotubes, glass fiber filters, bending tests