• Vega, Patrick
• Salvador, Hilda Reyes
• Henderson, Leaford Nathan
• Suarez, Gustavo
• Pandey, Deepak
• Roberson, Luke
• Kumar, Kowsik Sambath

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>The current electric vehicles (EVs) face many challenges like limited charge capacity, low miles/charge, and long charging times. Herein, these issues are addressed by developing a dual‐function supercapacitor‐based energy‐storing carbon fiber reinforced polymer (e‐CFRP) that can store electrical energy and function as the structural component for the EV's body shell. This is achieved by developing a unique design, vertically aligned graphene sheets attached to carbon fiber electrodes on which different metal oxides are deposited to obtain high‐energy density electrodes. A high‐strength multilayer e‐CFRP assembly is fabricated using an alternate layer patterning configuration of epoxy and polyacrylamide gel electrolyte. The e‐CFRP so developed delivers a high areal energy density of 0.31 mWh cm<jats:sup>–2</jats:sup> at 0.3 mm thickness and a high tensile strength of 518 MPa, bending strength of 477 MPa, and impact strength of 2666 J m<jats:sup>–1</jats:sup>. To show its application in EVs, a toy car's body panel is fabricated with e‐CFRP and the toy car is able to operate using the energy stored in its frame. Moreover, when integrated with a solar cell, this composite powers an Internet of Things device, showing its feasibility in communication satellites.</jats:p>

Topics

• density
• impedance spectroscopy
• polymer
• Carbon
• energy density
• strength
• composite
• tensile strength
• aligned