Multifunctional CuO nanowire embodied structural supercapacitor based on woven carbon fiber/ionic liquid-polyester resin

Novel structural supercapacitors based on CuO nanowires and woven carbon fiber (WCF) has been developed for the first time employing vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) process. The growth of CuO nanowires on WCF is an efficient process and can be used in structural capacitors which can trigger the electric vehicle industries toward a new direction. The specific surface area of the carbon fiber was enhanced by NaOH etching (41.36 m2 g−1) and by growing CuO nanowires (132.85 m2 g−1) on the surface of the WCF. The specific capacitance of the CuO-WCF based supercapacitor was 2.48 F g−1, compared with 0.16 F g−1 for the bare WCF-based supercapacitor. The usage of ionic liquid and lithium salt improved the capacitance to 5.40 and 6.75 F g−1 with lowest ESR and Rp values of 133 and 1240 Ω along with improving mechanical properties within an acceptable range. The energy and power densities were also increased up to 106.04 mW h kg−1 and 12.57 W kg−1. Thus, this study demonstrated that growing CuO nanowires on the surface of WCF is a novel approach to improve multifunctionality that could be exploited in diverse applications such as electric cars, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and portable electronic devices.