Self-healing supercapacitors from Singapore

Michael Berger has written up the latest and greatest regarding self-healing capacitors and carbon nanotubes (which could have more relevance to your life than you realize) in a March 10, 2014 Nanowerk Spotlight article,

If you ever had problems with the (non-removable) battery in your iPhone or iPad then you well know that the energy storage or power source is a key component in a tightly integrated electronic device. Any damage to the power source will usually result in the breakdown of the entire device, generating at best inconvenience and cost and in the worst case a safety hazard and your latest contribution to the mountains of electronic waste.

A solution to this problem might now be at hand thanks to researchers in Singapore who have successfully fabricated the first mechanically and electrically self-healing supercapacitor.

Reporting their findings in Advanced Materials (“A Mechanically and Electrically Self-Healing Supercapacitor”) a team led by Xiaodong Chen, an associate professor in the School of Materials Science & Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, have designed and fabricated the first integrated, mechanically and electrically self-healing supercapacitor by spreading functionalized single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) films on self-healing substrates.

Inspired by the biological systems’ intrinsic self-repairing ability, a class of artificial ‘smart’ materials, called self-healing materials, which can repair internal or external damages have been developed over the past decade …

Berger goes on to describe how the researchers addressed the issue of restoring electrical conductivity, as well as, restoring mechanical properties to self-healing materials meant to be used as supercapacitors.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the team’s latest paper,

A Mechanically and Electrically Self-Healing Supercapacitor by Hua Wang, Bowen Zhu, Wencao Jiang, Yun Yang, Wan Ru Leow, Hong Wang, & Xiaodong Chen. Advanced Materials Article first published online: 19 FEB 2014 DOI: 10.1002/adma.201305682

© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Xiaodong Chen and his team were last mentioned here in a Jan. 9, 2014 posting in connection with their work on memristive nanodevices derived from protein.

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