The Army seeks to address the power and energy (P&E) needs of the Soldier by investigating commercial fabric materials as electrodes, enabling advances for energy storage on fabric electrode platforms with minimal burden for the Soldier in the field. In this work, we report methods to deposit iridium oxide nanoparticles (IrOx NPs) onto flexible light-weight materials for charge storage and examine electrochemical properties on the electrodes. In this work, IrOx NPs were electrodeposited onto commercially available flexible surfaces of both knit and nonwoven cotton, and nonwoven carbon-based (carbon nanotubes and graphene) textile substrates. The flexible electrode materials were fabricated by reducing graphene oxide onto cotton fabric or binding carbon nanotubes/graphene into a standalone platform. Iridium oxide was electrodeposited as NPs of less than 2 nm in size to serve as a redox active component to increase energy capacitance. Two nanoparticle deposition processes were investigated as well as the electrochemical properties of the integrated fibrous electrode configuration. Cyclic voltammetry was used to measure electron transfer properties and capacitance. Additional measurements were conducted to determine electrical resistance, surface area, energy and power densities, and charge/discharge rates (GCD). Results show a specific capacitance value increase over all three base fabric materials up to 2,747 percent. After electrodepositing IrOx NPs onto the textile electrodes, the active sites available for charge storage increased between 59 and 90 percent. The increase in both the specific capacitance values and total active sites indicate that IrOx NPs greatly enhance the charge storage capability of fabric materials. The integrated flexible electrodes were shown to be electrochemically stable over 1,000 GCD cycles. This research will advance fundamental understanding of relationships between high surface area electrodes and the use of redox reactive nanoparticles on charge storage mechanisms.

Electrochemical properties of 3-dimensional flexible substrates with iridium oxide nanoparticles for use as a supercapacitor

2019 Spring National Meeting

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