Effect of gel polymer electrolyte based on polyvinyl alcohol/polyethylene oxide blend and sodium salts on the performance of solid-state supercapacitor

Abstract

In this work, the effect of gel polymer electrolytes (GPE) containing polyvinyl alcohol/polyethylene oxide (90/10, wt%) blend and different contents of sodium salt mixture (sodium acetate (CH3COONa)/sodium sulphate (Na2SO4) = 50/50 wt%) on the performance of solid-state supercapacitor was investigated. The active electrode of the solid-state supercapacitor was made from graphene nanoplatelets and carbon black. The results indicate that the sodium salt mixtures were easily mixed in polymer blend gel to make excellent GPE with large concentration of ionic liquid. At the sodium salt mixture content of 30%, the solid-state supercapacitor showed the best performance of electrode-specific capacitance of 93.768 F g-1 at current density of 1 A g-1, energy density of 3.25 Wh kg-1 and power density of 586.166 W kg-1. These results highly recommend the good potential of GPE for developing solid-state supercapacitor in the future.