A microsupercapacitor designed by scientists at Rice University that may find its way into personal and even wearable electronics is getting an upgrade. The laser-induced graphene device benefits greatly when boron becomes part of the mix.
The Rice lab of chemist James Tour uses commercial lasers to create thin, flexible supercapacitors by burning patterns into common polymers. The laser burns away everything but the carbon to a depth of 20 microns on the top layer, which becomes a foam-like matrix of interconnected graphene flakes.
By first infusing the polymer with boric acid, the researchers quadrupled the supercapacitor’s ability to store an electrical charge while greatly boosting its energy density.
Rice scientists made this supercapacitor with interlocked "fingers" using a laser and writing the pattern into a boron-infused sheet of polyimide. Courtesy of the Tour Group
ACS Nano - Flexible Boron-Doped Laser-Induced Graphene Microsupercapacitors
Abstract
Heteroatom-doped graphene materials have been intensely studied as active electrodes in energy storage devices. Here, we demonstrate that boron-doped porous graphene can be prepared in ambient air using a facile laser induction process from boric acid containing polyimide sheets. At the same time, active electrodes can be patterned for flexible microsupercapacitors. As a result of boron doping, the highest areal capacitance of as-prepared devices reaches 16.5 mF/cm2, 3 times higher than nondoped devices, with concomitant energy density increases of 5–10 times at various power densities. The superb cyclability and mechanical flexibility of the device are well-maintained, showing great potential for future microelectronics made from this boron-doped laser-induced graphene material.
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