Description:
Reference #: 00882
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for this the use of MnO2 in creating sustainable and renewable power sources.
Potential Applications:
Dr. Li’s research suggests that a MnO2/ZTO/CMF composite with hierarchical architecture is very promising for next generation, high-performance, flexible super-capacitors.
Advantages and Benefits:
• Low cost of MnO2
• Environmental friendliness of MnO2
• Natural abundance of MnO2
Invention Description:
To meet the urgent need for sustainable and renewable power sources in the modern electronic industry, many efforts have been made in developing flexible, lightweight and environmentally friendly energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors. Supercapacitors are promising candidates for next-generation power devices due to their high power density, fast charging/discharging rate, sustainable cycling life, and excellent cycle stability. One promising electrode material is MnO2. To realize the practical application of MnO2 and improve its electrical conductivity, MnO2 can be incorporated into nanostructures or nanometer-thick thin films in carbon-based materials, such as carbon nanotube networks, graphene sheets, and conductive polymers.
Dr. Li demonstrated the design and fabrication of a novel hybrid nano/microarchitecture by facile coating ultra-thin (several nanometers thick) MnO2 films to highly electrical conductive Zn2SnO4 (ZTO) nanowires grown radially on flexible carbon microfibers (CMFs) to achieve high specific capacitance, high energy density, high power density, and long-term life for supercapacitor electrode applications. This technology is a simple and cost-effective methodology developed to fabricate flexible supercapacitors based on MnO2/ZTO/CMF hybrid composite electrodes. In such a composite, the thin amorphous MnO2 layer enables fast reversible redox reaction to improve the specific capacitance, while the ZTO nanowires grown radially on CMFs provide highly conductive supporting backbones for coating amorphous MnO2 to effectively transport electrolytes and shorten the ion diffusion path. These characteristics demonstrate the excellent electrochemical performance of the MnO2/ZTO /CMF hybrid composites, such as high specific capacitance, good charge-discharge stability, excellent rate capability, long-term cycling life, high specific energy and high specific power.