More integrations and applications need to be involved with micro-supercapacitors

They published their work on Aug. 3rd in Energy Material Advances.

“The MSCs usually present planar structures, and the two electrodes are separated in plane without additional separator. The narrow electrode gap of MSC allows rapid transportation of electrolyte ions between the electrodes. Due to the short diffusion distance, charges are easy to be accumulated and released during charging and discharging procedure, enabling an ultrahigh power density of MSC for electrical appliances.” said paper corresponding author Liangti Qu, professor of Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University. “The ultrahigh power density of MSC promotes a large driving force for electrical appliances, thus the MSC shows a great potential in micro wearable electronics.”

Qu explained the advantages of the planar feature of MSC, especially for its small area, usually within centimeters to micrometers footprint, which can be assembled in some portable electronic devices, such as integrated circuits on chips, micro robots and position indicators.

 “The integration of MSCs and other electronics gradually become critical development directions of MSCs, and constitute an important part of future integrated circuits,” Qu said. “The integrated application of MSCs mainly involves the connections and matching degree between each electrical component, and the fitness of the materials and structures of the device. These discussions of the device have never been mentioned before.”

Focusing on the applications of multi-functional MSCs and MSC integrated circuits, Qu and his team introduced some special properties of multi-functional MSCs in the review. Additionally, from the perspective of integration, as the energy storage units, MSCs combining with energy-consuming devices (such as sensors) or energy-supplying devices are systematically discussed. To acquire a robust and compact structure, designing MSCs and various electronics into an all-in-one structure by using compatible materials is also listed. Finally, challenges and potential development of MSCs integrated systems are put forward.

“We surmised the research goal of MSC integrated systems in the review. The development of integrated MSC devices from simple, crude connection with metal wires to combination of all components into one shared substrate, and then to an organic unity in all-in-one structure makes the integrated MSCs device become more compact and robust.” Qu said.

 “The integrating level of self-powered integrated devices composed of MSCs and energy generators is still far from satisfactory. Loose and rude connectivity between the power generating equipment and MSCs easily causes energy consumption, leading to low charging efficiency and insufficient charging voltage of MSCs,” Qu said. “Although the development of structure and integration of MSCs system have solved this problem to a certain extent, few compatible and multifunctional materials can be chosen. Besides, the integrated device structure design is also difficult to meet most practical applications. To address these issues, the multifunctional compatible materials and the structural design of integrated devices between MSCs and other electronic components should be developed in future MSC integrated devices.”

Yang Zhao, another corresponding author, and Chang Gao, the first author of the paper, are affiliated with the Key Laboratory of Cluster Science, Ministry of Education of China, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology. Another contributor, Yuyang Gu, also comes from the same laboratory.

This work was supported by NSFC [22035005, 22075019], the National Key R&D Program of China [2017YFB1104300], Analysis & Testing Center, Beijing Institute of Technology.

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Reference

Authors: Chang Gao,^1,2 Yuyang Gu,¹ Yang Zhao,¹ and Liangti Qu³

Title of original paper: Recent Development of Integrated Systems of Microsupercapacitors

Journal: Energy Material Advances

DOI: 10.34133/2022/9804891

Affiliations: 

¹Key Laboratory of Cluster Science, Ministry of Education of China, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China

²School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China

³Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

About the authors:

Qu Liangti, professor, department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, doctoral supervisor, special professor of Cheungkong Scholars of the Ministry of Education, and a winner of National Science Foundation for Outstanding Young Scholars. The research focuses on the controllable preparation, functional modification and assembly of carbon nanomaterials, graphene, carbon nanotubes, conductive and functional polymers, and explores their applications in advanced functional materials, efficient energy conversion and storage.

Yang Zhao (corresponding author) is an associate professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology. She has been engaged in the preparation of carbon-based nanomaterials, graphene functional assemblies and their applications in new energy storage devices, electrochemical stimulation and other related fields for a long time. As the corresponding author (or the first), she has published 50 SCI papers.

Gao Chang (the first author), graduated from the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology in June 2022. Her tutor is Professor Qu Liangti and Associate Professor Zhao Yang. She is now a teacher at School of Electronic Information and Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University. Her research area is micro energy storage devices.