A flexible carbon electrode based on traditional cotton woven fabrics with excellent capacitance

A flexible and stretchable three-dimensional carbon electrode (SCF) based on the natural woven fabric was developed by coupling a sublimation generating pores method and facile pyrolyzing procedure. The SCF electrode possessed good mechanical flexibility, which was attributed to the increase in the specific surface area and the amount of the pores. Furthermore, the SCF electrode exhibited excellent capacitance property (157.89 F g−1 at 2 m s−1), resulting from the synergistic effect between the double-layer capacitance (large specific surface area, high porosity and excellent conductivity) and the pseudocapacitance of O and N heteroatoms. The SCF will be employed as a promising candidate for flexible energy storage devices owing to the excellent wearable and electrochemical performance. The one-step strategy can provide a novel route for low-cost production of high-performance flexible energy storage materials from the natural fabrics.