Prof. Guihua Yu, The University of Texas at Austin
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Hierarchical Nanostructured Conducting Polymer Hydrogels as a Unique Material for Advanced Energy Storage
Guihua Yu
Materials Science & Engineering and
Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin,
TX 78712
Email: ghyu@austin.utexas.edu;
Website: http://yugroup.me.utexas.edu
Conductive polymer hydrogels (CPHs) represent a unique class of polymeric materials with 3D hierarchical networks of crosslinked polymer chains, andsynergize the advantageous features of hydrogels with electrical and optical properties of ‘organic metals’. They provide an excellent interface between the electronic-transporting phase (electrode) and the ionic-transporting phase (electrolyte) as well as between soft and hard materials, and have been explored for a range of important technological applications from biosensors and medical electrodes, to energy storage devices such as supercapacitors and biofuel cells. This seminar will describe our recent progress on rational syntheses and device studies of nanostructured CPHs with tunable structures and electrochemical properties for high-performance energy storage devices such as supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries.Owing to their interesting 3D hierarchical architecture and multi-scale porosity, high electrical conductivity and redox activity, the CPHs can enable the design of next-generation electrochemical storage devices, offering high power and energy densities as well as excellent cycling stability.