Carbon cloth textiles are widely used in high-performance flexible, portable and low-cost supercapacitors. Herein, a simple calcination in air at 450 °C was developed to activate commercial carbon cloth textiles to achieve a significantly improved specific surface area and in turn outstanding electrochemical performances for supercapacitors. The areal capacitance of the activated carbon cloth (ACC) electrode is 1184 times that of the untreated one (1136.7 vs. 0.96 mF cm⁻² at 2 mV s⁻¹), mainly due to the introduced surface oxygen functional groups, the remarkably improved specific surface area, and the greatly enhanced hydrophobicity. The full-cell symmetric supercapacitor constructed with ACC shows an areal specific capacitance of 554 mF cm⁻² and an energy density of 77 μW h cm⁻² at 1 mA cm⁻² with a superior rate capability (retaining 70 μW h cm⁻² at 50 mA cm⁻²) and a good cycling stability of up to 50 000 cycles. Furthermore, ACC can serve as an excellent scaffold for supporting other capacitive materials (e.g., TiO₂ nanowires) to further improve the areal capacitance. The current investigation provides an extremely simple route to significantly improve the electrochemical performances of ACC-based electrodes for supercapacitors. It also evidences the significant contributions of carbon cloth to specific capacitance when it is used as a substrate to load electrochemically active materials and at the same time the synthetic route involves air calcination at a temperature above 450 °C.

Because of their extensive specific surface area, excellent charge transfer rate, superior chemical stability, low cost, and Earth abundance, nanostructured titanium dioxide (TiO₂) arrays have been thoroughly explored during the past few decades. The synthesis methods for TiO₂ nanoarrays, which mainly include hydrothermal/solvothermal processes, vapor-based approaches, templated growth, and top-down fabrication techniques, are summarized, and the mechanisms are also discussed. In order to improve their electrochemical performance, several attempts have been conducted to produce TiO₂ nanoarrays with morphologies and sizes that show tremendous promise for energy storage. This paper provides an overview of current developments in the research of TiO₂ nanostructured arrays. Initially, the morphological engineering of TiO₂ materials is discussed, with an emphasis on the various synthetic techniques and associated chemical and physical characteristics. We then give a brief overview of the most recent uses of TiO₂ nanoarrays in the manufacture of batteries and supercapacitors. This paper also highlights the emerging tendencies and difficulties of TiO₂ nanoarrays in different applications.

A molten salt method is developed to coat ultrathin hexagon Fe₂O₃ nanoplates on carbon cloth within 1 min, which simultaneously activates the carbon fibers, for flexible supercapacitors with a high areal capacitance.

Demonstrating asymmetric (AuNR–Pt)–Ag tri-metallic nanostructures by a two-step seed-mediated method. The shell thickness was controlled by the amount of AgNO₃.