Flexible supercapacitor electrodes with silver nanowire networks

Silver nanowires (Ag NWs) are appealing candidates for supercapacitor electrodes due to their high conductivity in addition to their allowance for all active materials to be in close contact to facilitate charge transport. All are very important to attain maximum charge accumulation provided that Ag NWs are electrochemically stable within the utilized potential window. In this work, high aspect ratio Ag NWs are used within a coaxial and/or network-like flexible nanocomposite structure in supercapacitor electrodes. Utilization of Ag NWs as conductive templates also results in rapid deposition of electrode active materials. We have fabricated supercapacitors using Ag NWs and their nanocomposites with molybdenum oxide (MoO2) (500.7 F g-1) [1], nickel hydroxide (Ni(OH)2) (1165.2 F g-1) [2], polypyrrole (PPy) (509 F g-1) and some PEDOT derivatives (61.5 F g-1). Highly conductive Ag NWs were utilized as the only current collectors and templates for these electrode active materials. Electrochemical properties of the fabricated Ag NW based flexible nanocomposite supercapacitor electrodes were investigated through galvanostatic charge-discharge, cyclic voltammetry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. We will present a detailed analysis of utilization of Ag NWs in the fabricated supercapacitors to underline their charge transport behavior. Our results showed the potential of the use of Ag NWs in energy storage devices and the structures presented in this work is highly plausible and can be easily extended to other metal nanowire, metal oxide and conducting polymer systems