Supercondensers store electric charge in textile materials

01 Nov '19

2 min read

Pic: Polytechnic University of Valencia

New devices that store electric charge in textile materials have been developed by researchers at the Alcoi campus of Spain’s Valencia's Polytechnic University (UPV). These are supercondensers placed on active carbon tissues that stand out due to their electric properties and high level of power. These could be used to charge mobile phones, for example.

The research has been published in the European Polymer Journal.

The study used textile materials as electrodes. The devices use all the potential of active carbon, graphene and polyaniline, a high-capability polymer widely used in textile materials.

They evaluated different strategies that obtain electric charge accumulators from the electrochemical reduction of graphene oxide on the surface of the activated carbon (reduced graphene oxide—RGO) and the subsequent electrosynthesis of polyaniline (Pani).

The supercondensers have been developed on textile materials, and therefore, the volume:mass and surface:mass ratios are very high. This greatly improves their potential, according to Francisco J Cases, lead coordinator of the research.

These new devices can withstand 1,000 charging and discharging cycles with no issues. These can also be used to treat textile waste water by way of electrolysis and also in biomedical settings.

The work now focuses on developing prototypes that are able to decontaminate greater volumes of industrial waste water, using these textile materials as electrodes in an electrochemical system.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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