Wearable supercapacitors based on nickel tungstate decorated commercial cotton fabrics

The research article “Wearable supercapacitors based on nickel tungstate decorated commercial cotton fabrics”, co-authored by METU visiting researcher Dr. Farzaneh Hekmat, METU members Res. Asst. Yusuf Tutel and Prof. Hüsnü Emrah Ünalan, has been published in International Journal of Energy Research.

Symmetric supercapacitors (SSCs) with remarkable energy storing capability, high specific power as well as long-term cyclic stability were fabricated from nickel tungstate (NiWO4) @ nickel oxide (NiOx) decorated commercial cotton fabrics (CCFs). A commercial cotton-based textile was first made conductive by the state of the art ultrasonic spray coating method. This was followed by chemical and electrochemical processes to decorate activated CCFs with NiOx and NiWO4, respectively. The assembled SSCs had the merit of high specific energy of 12 μWh cm−2 at a specific power of 69 μW cm−2 while showing reasonable cyclic stability. Fabricated devices retained over 80% of their initial capacitance after 5500 continuous charge/discharge cycles. The flexibility of the devices was investigated under bending, twisting, and folding providing reliable evidence on the wearability of the fabricated SSCs. Cyclic voltammograms of the fabricated NiWO4@NiOx@CCF SSCs showed only a slight change and retained over 95% of the capacitance under bending and folding. The fabricated NiWO4@NiOx@CCF SSCs, in this regard, are promising energy storage systems to power up high-performance wearable electronics.

Hekmat, F., Tutel, Y., & Unalan, H. E. (2020). Wearable supercapacitors based on nickel tungstate decorated commercial cotton fabrics. International Journal of Energy Research, 44(9), 7603-7616. doi:10.1002/er.5493

Article access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/er.5493

Keywords:

cotton fabric; electrochemical deposition; in situ chemical synthesis; nickel oxide; nickel tungstate; supercapacitors; ultrasonic spray coating