Free-standing and flexible polyvinyl alcohol-sodium alginate-polypyrrole electrodes based on interpenetrating network hydrogels

Flexible supercapacitors (FSCs) have attracted much attention due to their strong mechanical flexibility, wearability and portability, which greatly rely on the employed flexible electrodes. The conductive polymer hydrogels with excellent flexibility, processability and capacitive performance are one of the most promising candidates, which are still limited by their poor mechanical properties. Constructing robust interpenetrating polymer networks (IPN) is an effective approach to promote their mechanical properties. Herein, interpenetrating polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-sodium alginate (SA)-polypyrrole (PPy) hydrogels are prepared by the freeze–thaw and in-situ polymerization method. The IPN structure composed of PVA and SA not only enhances the mechanical properties of hydrogels, but also provides substantial active sites for electrochemical reactions. Moreover, the hydrogen-bonding interaction between different components in the PVA-SA-PPy hydrogel boosts the charge/ion transfer. The optimal PVA-SA-PPy hydrogels show an elongation at break of 380 %, a tensile strength of 1.5 MPa, and a specific capacitance of 2646 mF cm−2 at 2 mA cm−2. The symmetric PVA-SA-PPy FSCs show an energy density of 96.7 μWh cm−2 at a power density of 999.9 μW cm−2, and the capacitance retention is 66.3 % after 10,000 cycles. These exceptional mechanical and electrochemical properties make the PVA-SA-PPy hydrogels a promising candidate for FSCs.