Sodium Hyaluronate: A Versatile Polysaccharide toward Intrinsically Self-Healable Energy-Storage Devices

Self-healability is an attractive feature for next-generation energy-storage devices aiming at flexible/wearable electronics. However, realizing self-healability usually involves complicated molecular design and synthetic process. Here we demonstrate that sodium hyaluronate (SH), a kind of natural polysaccharide, can be used as a versatile polymer to facile fabricate intrinsically self-healable energy-storage devices. Self-healable sodium ion batteries and asymmetric capacitors are fabricated by integrating their electroactive components into dynamic SH networks cross-linked via borate ester bonding. The devices autonomously recover their configuration integrity, microstructure, mechanical and electrochemical properties even after 9 cycles of breaking/healing, exhibiting excellent reliability, easy maintenance and superior safety. The electrochemical performances and self-healability are estimated to be the best among those of the existing self-healable energy-storage devices. This facile and versatile st...