Flexible Supercapacitors for Energy Supply in Smart Textiles – Applications and Prototype

Smart textiles and wearable products have recently become popular, however some drawbacks such as the energy supply with heavy batteries still hinders mass production of such textile products. In order to overpass this drawback, flexible supercapacitors represent a promising alternative for energy supply and also have outstanding properties regarding power density, resistance to many charge-discharge cycles and resistance to a wide temperature range. In this work we propose the manufacturing of a flexible supercapacitor prototype, meant to be integrated into a smart textile product for energy supply of its electronic components. The supercapacitor was made of two Nickel electrodes, one separator acting also as electrolyte and two connectors. The measurement of its electrical parameters, namely electric conductivity of the electrodes ($250 \mathrm{~S} / \mathrm{m}$), equivalent series resistance ($6.9 \Omega$) and electrical capacitance (8.64 F) of the assembled supercapacitor yielded promising results, to be further developed and optimized.