Carbon foams, especially graphene foams, has recently received a lot of interest in the field of flexible energy storage due to their excellent electrochemical properties and flexibility. In this work, a compressible melamine-based carbon/reduced graphene oxide foam was synthesized using a simple one-step process. The nitrogen-rich melamine allows the final composite material to be rich in nitrogen, resulting in a higher conductivity and performance. The synergistic combination of nitrogen-doped carbon foam and reduced graphene oxide results in a compressible, free-standing, binder-free electrode (shown in Figure 1) with a capacity of 330 mAh g^-1 at 0.1 A that can be used in both Lithium-ion Hybrid Supercapacitors (LIHSs) and Lithium-ion Batteries (LIBs). The composite electrode can also be used as a current collector for other active materials. As a proof of concept, a LIHS was fabricated using the composite foam as a free-standing electrode in both the cathode an anode. The resulting device has an energy density of 40 Wh kg^-1 at 1 A that can be maintained for 800 charge and discharge cycles.

Figure 1 (a) 3D representation of the cMEGX synthesis procedure, (b) SEM image of neat melamine, (c) SEM image of a representative cMEGX sample, (d) optical image of cMEG800 showing its compressibility