Scalable fabrication of inkless, transfer-printed graphene-based textile microsupercapacitors with high rate capabilities

Abstract We have demonstrated the use of thermal transfer printing for scalable, inkless fabrication of a graphene-based textile microsupercapacitor (MSC). An adhesive film of a heat transfer paper was employed as a flat, buffer adhesive layer on a rough textile substrate. Laser-induced graphene (LIG) directly laser-written on polyimide (PI) films was transferred onto the adhesive film area of the textile substrates at elevated temperature and pressure. A thermally transfer-printed LIG pattern preserved porous structure with 3D interconnected pores and high electrical conductivity of LIG formed on PI films. The developed textile LIG-MSCs exhibit electrical double layer capacitive characteristics with areal capacitance of 0.76mFcm−2 and excellent capacitance retention of 96% after 1000 cycles of large bending (180°) deformation. Furthermore, scalable transfer of a large-area LIG pattern provided various array configurations of MSCs in series and in parallel to adjust the voltage and current for practical applications. Moreover, LIG-MSCs with a LIG-metal composite exhibit fast ion transport at a high scan rates of up to 20Vs-1, suggesting outstanding rate capability among graphene-based textile MSCs. In this regard, the proposed inkless transfer strategy provided low cost and scalable fabrication of a LIG composite electrode on a textile substrate without preparing costly graphene-based ink materials.