Quaternized chitosan-assisted in situ synthesized CuS/cellulose nanofibers conductive paper for flexible electrode

Cellulose nanofibers (CNF) are considered to be a potential substrate of energy material for energy storage devices due to the foldable, lightweight, recyclable and environmentally friendly feature. However, the energy materials tend to distribute unevenly or fall off from CNF easily, resulting in the decrease of the devices’ overall performance. Here, for the first time, we used quaternized chitosan (QCS) as stabilizer and adhesive to in situ synthesize and deposite copper sulfide nanocrystals (CuS-NCs) on CNF and further obtained the conductive paper for flexible supercapacitors. In the presence of QCS, CuS-NCs deposited in situ on CNF can be capped and stabilized by the QCS molecular chains for uniform distribution, which is conducive to the capacitive behavior and electrochemical stability of composite paper. The result shows that the specific capacitance of the composite paper was as high as 314.3 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g, a high rate capacitance of 252.6 F/g was achieved even at a high current density of 10 A/g. It reveals that the composite paper exhibited better electrochemical performance than many other CuS-based electrode materials for supercapacitor. More importantly, the composite paper performed well in various folding state without changing much electrochemical performance. Therefore, this work provides a novel strategy to in situ fabricate paper-based electrode for next- generation flexible energy-storage system.