Titanium Carbide MXene and Silver Nanowire Composite Ink for Transparent Flexible Printed Micro‐Supercapacitors

A flexible and transparent micro-supercapacitor (m-SC) is developed via direct ink writing technique. The active electrodes are a composite of silver nanowires, PEDOT:PSS, and titanium carbide MXene. These materials are combined in deionized water to form a printable ink. This composite results in achieving high capacitance along with high transparency in an m-SC.

Micro-supercapacitors (m-SCs) are a competent power source for flexible and transparent electronics due to their compact and adaptive design. However, high-performance transparent m-SCs require an optimum balance between transparency and storage capacity. Herein, a composite of titanium carbide (Ti₃C₂T _x ) and silver nanowires (Ag NWs) is proposed as electrodes for flexible and transparent m-SCs. This composite is synthesized in the form of a printable ink for direct ink writing (DIW) of the m-SC using poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) as the conductive binder. The concentration of the Ag NWs, Ti₃C₂T _x , and PEDOT:PSS in the ink is optimized to ensure high optical transparency, flexibility, and electrochemical performance of the m-SC. The optimized printed m-SC exhibits an areal capacitance of 8.34 mF cm⁻² and a transparency of ≈82% (at 550 nm) resulting in a high figure of merit of 15.1 F S⁻¹ cm⁻². It also shows high mechanical stability by retaining ≈97% of its original capacitance in various bent positions. Printing of an m-SCs array is demonstrated in a single step by utilizing DIW. This array is used to power a surface-mount display LED. The obtained results for the developed m-SC promise its high suitability for futuristic, fully wearable, and invisible electronics.

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