Recent developments and challenges in flexible electrochemical energy devices

Abstract

This chapter is focused on the strategies adopted for the development and optimization processes utilized to obtain flexible energy storage devices such as batteries and supercapacitors. There is a trend within the scientific community and industry pushing toward the fabrication of flexible devices, which can significantly enlarge their field of application, including their use in smartwatches, flexible displays, wearable devices, and biomedical devices. Based on the novelty of this technology, this chapter addresses the main types of materials, strategies, and approaches utilized for the fabrication of flexible devices. The first section briefly introduces the most used electroactive materials, the importance of nanostructure, and general aspects. The second section addresses the fundamental aspects of electrochemical devices, focusing on batteries and supercapacitors. In the third section, the main advances were observed in the field of flexible batteries while presenting some of the most recent strategies presented in the literature. The fourth section addresses the main progress observed in developing flexible supercapacitors and discusses some of the latest works. Finally, the last section provides an overview of the main challenges and progress that the scientific community has achieved, along with some discussion regarding the future of this field and its importance for the next generation of energy storage devices.