Flexible textile electrode with high areal capacity from hierarchical V2O5 nanosheet arrays

Abstract

The search for an appropriate flexible cathode is pivotal to expediting the development of flexible and foldable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Herein, we demonstrate a simple and scalable synthesis of hierarchical V2O5 nanosheet arrays on polydopamine (PDA)-decorated carbon cloth with strong combination between them, which then directly applied as flexible cathode for LIBs. We found this flexible cathode with a loading mass of 2.1 mg cm−2 can deliver a high specific capacity of 120 mAh g−1 even at 15C (1C = 300 mA g−1) and maintain a long-term cycling stability, i.e. simply 0.30% capacity loss per cycle at 2C for 100 cycles without morphology change. More importantly, the corresponding areal capacity can reach as high as 560 μAh cm−2 at 210 μA cm−2, favorably comparing with the-state-of-art flexible cathode reported to date. Additionally, a flexible LIBs full cell has been assembled, exhibiting high mechanical strength and superior electrochemical performances. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.