Current status and challenges of biohydrogels for applications as supercapacitors and secondary batteries

Progress in the chemical sciences has formed the world we live in, both on a macroscopic and on a nanoscopic scale. The last decade has witnessed the development of high performance materials that store charge in many ways: from solar cells to fuel cells, and from batteries to supercapacitor devices. One could argue that inorganic hybrid materials have played a central, starring role for the assembly of various electrochemical energy conversion systems. However, energy conversion systems fabricated from biopolymers has just emerged as a new prospect. Here, we summarize the main research results on the attractive use of biohydrogels for the fabrication of either conductive electrolytes or electrodes for battery science and technology. © 2016 The Royal Society of Chemistry.This work has been supported by MICINN and FEDER funds (MAT2015-69367-R) and by DFG (DI 1748/3-1). E. A. acknowledges the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain for a research mobility grant (PRX14/00627). Support for the research of C. A. was received through the award “ICREA Academia” for excellence in research funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya. D. D. D. thanks the DFG for the Heisenberg professorship award.Peer reviewe