A scalable new platform to produce all-carbon low-cost paper-based electrodes

This work is based on a scalable new platform to produce graphite-coated paper as a high-performance, flexible and low-cost conductive material.1,2 Dispersions of activated carbon and/or graphite in an alkaline cellulose solution were prepared with different compositions and sprayed on filter paper. Coated paper sheets were assembled as symmetric capacitors and tested in galvanostatic charge-discharge cycling experiments using different current densities. The results in Figure 1 compare favorably to the state-of-theart all-carbon paper-based supercapacitors in the literature (e.g., 80 mF.cm-2 for graphene oxide in cellulose tissues).3 They also surpass the performances of hybrid supercapacitors that include manganese oxide nanoparticles within the paper/graphene matrix, yielding 175 mF.cm-2).4 Thus, blending activated carbon with graphite exfoliated by soluble cellulose provides an excellent combination of electrical conductivity and interfacial activity required to make high-performance supercapacitors.