Cyclic Bending Reliability and Failure Mechanism of Printed Biodegradable Flexible Supercapacitor on Polymer Substrate.

A flexible supercapacitor (SC) is an attractive energy storage device for powering low-power sensors, since it can be built using only nontoxic and sustainable materials. In this study, the advantages of using biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) substrate for printed SC are investigated by studying the SC's cyclic bending reliability, failure mechanism, and the impact of the bending radius. The results confirm that the SCs with laminated PLA with polymer barrier substrate exhibited the highest bending reliability, stability, and capability in preventing liquid electrolyte evaporation among the investigated substrates.