Plastics have revolutionized our world, shaping everything from packaging to electronics. For a long time, plastics were known for their excellent insulating properties.
However, a surprising discovery in the 1970s revealed that some plastics could conduct electricity. This breakthrough led to new possibilities for electronics and energy storage.
One of the most commonly used conductive plastics today is called PEDOT, short for poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene).
PEDOT is a thin, flexible, and transparent material that’s often applied to surfaces to prevent static electricity.
You can find it in touch screens, organic solar cells, and even smart windows that can change from light to dark with the press of a button.
Despite its versatility, PEDOT hasn’t been widely used for energy storage because its conductivity and surface area weren’t good enough to store large amounts of energy.
That’s where researchers from UCLA have made a big leap forward.
By developing a new method to grow PEDOT nanofibers, they’ve created a material with much higher energy storage potential.
The research, published in Advanced Functional Materials, explains how the team used a unique vapor-phase growth process to form the PEDOT nanofibers.
These fibers grow vertically, like tiny blades of grass, creating a much larger surface area compared to traditional flat PEDOT films.
This increased surface area is critical because it allows the material to hold more electric charge, making it ideal for supercapacitors.
Supercapacitors are energy storage devices that work differently from batteries. Instead of relying on slow chemical reactions, they store and release energy by accumulating an electric charge on their surface.
This allows supercapacitors to charge and discharge extremely quickly, making them perfect for applications like regenerative braking in electric vehicles or powering camera flashes.
The UCLA team used their new PEDOT material to build supercapacitors with impressive results. The material’s conductivity is 100 times higher than commercial PEDOT products, and its surface area is four times larger.
These properties helped the supercapacitors achieve a charge storage capacity of over 4,600 milliFarads per square centimeter—nearly ten times more than traditional PEDOT materials.
Additionally, the material is incredibly durable, lasting through more than 70,000 charging cycles. This durability and efficiency make it a strong candidate for renewable energy applications, where fast, long-lasting energy storage is crucial.
The research team, led by UCLA professors Maher El-Kady and Richard Kaner, believes this innovation could address global energy storage challenges. “The unique vertical growth of the nanofibers allows us to create PEDOT electrodes that store far more energy than ever before,” said El-Kady.
Kaner, who has been researching conducting polymers for over 37 years, played a key role in the discovery of electrically conductive plastics as a doctoral student. His advisors, Alan MacDiarmid and Alan Heeger, received a Nobel Prize for their groundbreaking work.
This discovery marks a significant step forward in the development of supercapacitors, which could play a key role in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. With faster, more efficient, and longer-lasting energy storage solutions, the future of renewable energy looks brighter than ever.
