Researchers from Chalmers have demonstrated fabrication of high-power density energy storage devices using alkyl-amino functionalized reduced graphene oxide (rGO).
By utilising conventional cleanroom technologies such as spin-coating, lithography and reactive ion etching, they have demonstrated fabrication of complementary-metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible on-chip energy storage devices called micro-supercapacitors (MSCs). These devices when combined with energy harvesting units such as solar energy, thermoelectric, or vibrational energy harvesters can potentially replace batteries in on-chip electronics.
Spin-coated MSCs often suffer from poor electrode thickness that leads to low energy densities. Vyas and co-workers address this issue by demonstrating MSCs fabricated of alkyl-amino functionalized reduced-graphene-oxide–heptadecan-9-amine (rGO-MSCs) for enhanced electrode thickness, high capacitance, and lower series resistance compared with functionalized graphene oxide-based MSCs (GO-MSCs).
The functionalized rGO solves a significant issue of inadequate electrode thickness in wafer-scale MSC fabrication while achieving higher energy densities in fewer spin coatings.
In GreEnergy, these newly developed MSCs will be used as building blocks to realise on-chip power supply in conjunction with solar harvesters.
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