Highly Flexible and Self‐Healing Supercapacitor Enabled by Physically Crosslinking Polymer Hydrogel Electrolyte

Preparation of flexible supercapacitors with excellent mechanical properties and self-healing properties is of great significance but still remains a challenge. A self-healable conductive hydrogel based on poly N-hydroxyethyl acrylamide (PHEAA) is fabricated as electrolyte for supercapacitors. The design of the physically cross-linked dual network, and rich hydrogen bonds endow the hydrogel with robust mechanical properties and strong self-healing ability. The hydrogel exhibited an excellent stretchability (723%) and a high ionic conductivity (21.8 mS/cm). Specially, by in-situ growth of electrode film, a non-laminated supercapacitor is obtained with flexibility and self-healing ability. Due to the non-laminated structure, the supercapacitor can work stably under bending and punching. The supercapacitor possessed an areal capacitance of 253.1 mF/cm2 and the capacitance retention was 80% after five cutting-healing cycles. The pseudo-capacitance contribution of the supercapacitor after self-healing was discussed. It is noteworthy that the supercapacitor maintains the ability to power a clock after self-healing.