LAUSR

AbstractA facile and scalable approach is here proposed to fabricate fiber-shaped electrodes and their integration into wearable supercapacitors. Copper wires were used as axial current collector and covered by dip coating with a carbon-based slurry. A gel electrolyte was used both as ionic conductor and separator between the two parallel wire-electrodes. The decoration of the carbon-based active material with ZnO nanoparticles was investigated in order to boost the supercapacitors performance exploiting the pseudocapacitive response of this wide band-gap semiconductor. Composites of ZnO/graphite with different wt.% ZnO (such as 1, 5, 10, 20% of ZnO nanoparticles) were prepared. X-ray powder diffraction and Raman micro spectroscopy served as phase-analytical methods. Field emission scanning electron microscopy technique was used for morphology characterization of the prepared samples. The electrical characterization of the devices showed excellent results both in terms of specific capacitance and cycling and bending stability. The ease of the proposed process can allow its rapid integration in a large-scale production for efficient wearable supercapacitors. Graphical abstractParallel wire shape supercapacitors