With rising energy concerns, efficient energy conversion and storage devices are required to provide a sustainable, green energy supply. Solar cells hold promise as energy conversion devices due to their utilization of readily accessible solar energy; however, the output of solar cells can be non-continuous and unstable. Therefore, it is necessary to combine solar cells with compatible energy storage devices to realize a stable power supply. To this end, supercapacitors, highly efficient energy storage devices, can be integrated with solar cells to mitigate the power fluctuations. Here, we report on the development of a solar cell-supercapacitor hybrid device as a solution to this energy requirement. A high-performance, cotton-textile-enabled asymmetric supercapacitor is integrated with a flexible solar cell via a scalable roll-to-roll manufacturing approach to fabricate a self-sustaining power pack, demonstrating its potential to continuously power future electronic devices.

Nature Communications 7, Article number: 11586 doi:10.1038/ncomms11586
Received 12 November 2015 Accepted 06 April 2016 Published 18 May 2016

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160518/ncomms11586/full/ncomms11586.html

中文翻译：太阳能取之不尽用之不竭，清洁无污染，然而其间断性和不稳定性迫切需要将太阳能转化为化学能进行储存。美国弗吉尼亚大学的研究人员利用卷对卷法将太能电池和超级电容器集成到棉纺织衣物上，完成了从太阳能到化学能的转化和储存。研究人员利用钴铝层状双氢氧化物和石墨烯分别作为超级电容器的正负极材料，电压能达到1.6V，能量密度55.04Wh/kg,功率密度5.44kW/kg,循环2000次后电容量仍然保持87.54%。集成的太阳能-超级电容器电源在有无太阳光时都能持续为商用LED灯供电，表现出巨大的应用潜力。（新材料在线）