A facile blow spinning technique for green cellulose acetate/polystyrene composite separator for flexible energy storage devices

Abstract

The search of sustainable gadgets, such as the portable electronics and wearables, have sparked the need for more sustainable and environment friendly constituent elements (e.g., electrode materials, separators, and green electrolytes) and low-cost scalable fabrication techniques. Herein, a facile and scalable blow spinning technique is proposed for the synthesis of a cellulose-based separator for flexible energy storage devices. A cellulose acetate and polystyrene (CA:PS) based composite separator is synthesized for the first time for flexible supercapacitors by exploiting the blow spinning technique. Different combinations of CA:PS were synthesized, and electrochemical performances of the devices were evaluated. A sweat simulation solution is used as green electrolyte for the development of symmetrical carbon yarn-based supercapacitors. The influence on the device performances of pristine carbon yarn, activated carbon yarns and PEDOT functionalized carbon yarns, electrodes were compared. Specific capacitances of 2.8 Fg−1 and 33 Fg−1 were obtained for pristine carbon and PEDOT functionalized carbon fibers respectively. The fabricated devices exploiting the composite separator exhibited good washing stability up to 30 cycles and capacitance retention of 95% up to 1000 charge/discharge cycles.