Fabrication and characterization of MnO2-Coated carbon fabrics from silk for shape-editable supercapacitors

Abstract Supercapacitor (SC) fabrics have received considerable research interests due to their inherently flexible and wearable attributes. In the meantime, advanced wearable electronics devices with editability and programmability are much desired. Herein, a highly flexible and shape-editable carbonized silk fabric (CS) covered by a MnO2 layer was fabricated via a facile high-temperature carbonization process followed by a hydrothermal treatment. The flexible CS played an essential role in the editability of the shape-editable supercapacitor (SESC). Whereas the introduction of MnO2 greatly improved the hydrophilicity and capacitance performance of CS as it promoted electrolyte penetration and offered abundant electroactive sites. The SESC was assembled using two pieces CS-MnO2-10 as the electrodes. And it exhibited a high specific capacitance of 105.00 F g−1 at a current density of 0.25 A g−1 with a high energy density (14.58 W h kg−1 at a power density of 0.25 kW kg−1). Moreover, owing to the excellent flexibility and editability of CS-MnO2-10, the assembled SESCs could be easily edited to desired shapes. This work paved a road for the manufacturing of innovative energy storage devices to power various advanced electronic devices.