Toward fully processable micro-supercapacitors

Micro-supercapacitors are attracting increasing attention due to their potential applications in multiple real-world energy scenarios such as wearable electronic devices, powering the internet of things, and medical applications. While tremendous efforts are being made in the performance enhancement, one of the bottleneck issues inhibiting their upscaling is the complicated manufacturing process. In this issue of Joule, Bruce Dunn and colleagues demonstrated a fully processable micro-supercapacitor engaging a photopatternable hydroxide ion conducting solid electrolyte, which is thermally and dimensionally stable with a high conductivity of 10 mS cm(-1). The micro-supercapacitor composites of VN and NiCo2O4 electrodes and the [AMIM][OH]/SU-8 hydroxide-conducting solid electrolyte show high areal capacitance of 250 mF cm(-2) at 20 mV s(-1) sweep rate, which is one of the highest performances among reported results.

Automated summary

Micro-supercapacitors have great potential for various energy applications, but the complicated manufacturing process is a bottleneck for their scalability. This study demonstrates a fully processable micro-supercapacitor with excellent performance.