Multifunctional flexible conductive materials for supercapacitors and biosensors
| dc.contributor.author | Hsu, Helen H. | |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | Chen, Ying (Biosystems Engineering) Herbert, David (Chemistry) Zhang, Jin (Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Western University) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Zhong, Wen (Biosystems Engineering) | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-03-31T22:26:19Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2021-03-31T22:26:19Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2021-03-29 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021-03-29 | en_US |
| dc.date.submitted | 2021-03-29T16:28:05Z | en_US |
| dc.degree.discipline | Biosystems Engineering | en_US |
| dc.degree.level | Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Both natural polymers and synthetic polymers are great candidates to develop highly flexible stretchable advanced smart devices in order to fill up the highly demands on “Internet of Things”. However, many existing smart electronics are still limited by high production cost, low electric performance, heavy and rigid monofunctional devices, which calls for research and development of advanced conductive materials for smart electronics that are cost effective, light weight, highly flexible, stretchable yet tough, highly conductive and multifunctional for multiple purposes. For this thesis, three projects under the scope of flexible conductive materials for smart electronics were conducted. In the first project, a nanocellulose based small-scale flexible supercapacitor was developed. It allows high mass loading ratio of conductive materials such as polyaniline (PANI) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) in a matrix of small volume. This feature will be beneficial for the development of lightweight and sustainable flexible energy storage device. To solve the problem of possible physical damages of nanocellulose-based supercapacitor during long-term charge-discharge processes, the second project was developed a flexible self-healable hydrogel supercapacitor by tannic acid treated GelMA-CNC (gelatin methacrylate-cellulose nanocrystal) hydrogels incorporated with PANI and RGO. It showed excellent electrochemical performance even after five cut-heal processes. To avoid the weak mechanical strength of natural polymers, in the third project, a double network tough and highly stretchable multifunctional conductive hydrogel was developed from polyacrylic acid (PAA) infiltrated with conductive agents (PANI and RGO). This versatile hydrogel can be developed into a number of different devices, including a supercapacitor, a wireless wearable strain sensor, an ammonia gas sensor and a nano energy generator that have demonstrated their promising applications in a smart farming system. Flexible smart devices were successfully developed in this thesis. They showed great potentials for a variety of applications in renewable energy storage, health care, and smart farming. | en_US |
| dc.description.note | May 2021 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1993/35374 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en_US |
| dc.rights | open access | en_US |
| dc.subject | Conductive nanocellulose, conductive hydrogel, polyacrylic acid, self-healable supercapacitors, PANI, RGO, wireless wearable sensors, nano energy generator | en_US |
| dc.title | Multifunctional flexible conductive materials for supercapacitors and biosensors | en_US |
| dc.type | doctoral thesis | en_US |
| local.subject.manitoba | yes | en_US |