Recent advances on quasi-solid-state electrolytes for supercapacitors

Solid-state and quasi-solid-state electrolytes have been attracting the scientific community’s attention in the last decade. These electrolytes provide significant advantages, such as the absence of leakage and separators for devices and safety for users. They also allow the assembly of stretchable and bendable supercapacitors. Comparing solid-state to quasi-solid-states, the last provides the most significant energy and power densities due to the better ionic conductivity. Our goal here is to present recent advances on quasi-solid-state electrolytes, including gel-polymer electrolytes. We reviewed the most recent literature on quasi-solid-state electrolytes with different solvents for supercapacitors. Organic quasi-solid-state electrolytes need greater attention once they reach an excellent working voltage window greater than 2.5 V. Meanwhile, aqueous-based solid-state electrolytes have a restricted voltage window to less than 2 V. On the other hand, they are easier to handle, provide greater ionic conductivity and capacitance. Recent water-in-salt polymer-electrolytes have shown stability as great as 2 V encouraging further development in aqueous-based quasi-solid-state electrolytes. Moreover, hydrophilic conductive polymers have great commercial appeal for bendable devices. Thus, these electrolytes can be employed in flexible and bendable devices, favoring the improvement of portable electronics and wearable devices (376 references were evaluated and summarized here).