Self-assembled MXene-graphene oxide composite enhanced laser-induced graphene based electrodes towards conformal supercapacitor applications

Since pure laser-induced graphene (LIG)-based supercapacitors suffer poor capacity, additional active materials need to be introduced to promote the capacitive performance of LIG-based electrodes. However, the effective introduction and the removal of redundant active materials remain challenging during the fabrication of planar LIG-based supercapacitors. Here we propose the easy-removed self-assembled MXene-graphene oxide composite (C) for the preparation of LIG-based supercapacitors. Owing to the combination of homogeneous C solution and programmable laser-induced process, the as-prepared supercapacitor based on laser-induced C covered polyimide (PI) films (LIG-C) showed enhanced capacity and improved ion transportation characteristics due to the low sheet resistance (15.0 Ω sq−1) and homogenous microstructures. What’s more, the LIG-C-based supercapacitor prepared under laser power of 3 W exhibited good stability including a specific capacitance retention of 98.9% after six months and 102.4% after 1000 cycles charge–discharge process. Additionally, LIG-C-based supercapacitors also showed good performance uniformity, and series LIG-C-based supercapacitors could power a LED because of a voltage expansion. At the same time, LIG-C-based supercapacitors possessed good deformation-resisting properties under different bending states, which showed promising potential for future conformal electronics device applications. And we hope that this work will pave a new way for LIG-based material in the energy storage field.