Novel Conducting Polymer Hydrogels for Electrochemical Energy Storage Devices

Conductive polymer hydrogels (CPHs) represent a unique class of polymeric materials with 3D hierarchical networks of crosslinked polymer chains, and can synergize the advantageous features of hydrogels with electrical and optical properties of ‘organic metals’. They provide an excellent interface between the electrode and the electrolyte in electrochemical devices, as well as between soft and hard materials, and have been explored for a range of important technological applications from biosensors and medical electrodes, to energy storage devices such as supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries. This talk will discuss our recent progress on rational syntheses and device studies of nanostructured CPHs with tunable structures and electrochemical properties for high-performance energy storage devices. Given their 3D hierarchical architecture and multi-scale porosity, high electrical conductivity and redox activity, the CPHs can enable the design of high-performance electrochemical storage devices, offering high power and energy densities as well as excellent cyclability. Two examples will be presented: 1) CPHs function as active electrodes for making flexible solid-state supercapacitor devices; 2) CPHs serve as functional components to chemically integrate with silicon particles to make stable, high-energy-density battery anodes.