High per formance and flexible supercapacitors based on carbonized bamboo fibers for wide temperature applications

Abstract

High performance carbonized bamboo fibers were synthesized for a wide range of temperature dependent energy storage applications. The structural and electrochemical properties of the carbonized bamboo fibers were studied for flexible supercapacitor applications. The galvanostatic charge-discharge studies on carbonized fibers exhibited specific capacity of ∼510F/g at 0.4 A/g with energy density of 54 Wh/kg. Interestingly, the carbonized bamboo fibers displayed excellent charge storage stability without any appreciable degradation in charge storage capacity over 5,000 charge-discharge cycles. The symmetrical supercapacitor device fabricated using these carbonized bamboo fibers exhibited an areal capacitance of ∼1.55 F/cm 2 at room temperature. In addition to high charge storage capacity and cyclic stability, the device showed excellent flexibility without any degradation to charge storage capacity on bending the electrode. The performance of the supercapacitor device exhibited ∼65% improvement at 70 °C compare to that at 10 °C. Our studies suggest that carbonized bamboo fibers are promising candidates for stable, high performance and flexible supercapacitor devices. © The Author(s) 2016.