Review on Nanoarchitectured Current Collectors for Pseudocapacitors

Supercapacitors are of high importance as electrochemical energy storage devices attributing to their outstanding power performance, excellent reversibility and long cycle life. But meanwhile, they suffer from low energy when compared with batteries. Pseudocapacitive materials with a high theoretical capacitance hold a great promise in boosting the energy storage capability for supercapacitors. The emergence of nanoarchitectured current collectors aims to reach their full potentials in charge storage by addressing the challenging issues such as the intrinsically low electrical conductivity, and the sluggish charging-discharging behavior of most pseudocapacitive materials. This review pays particular attention to the advances of nanoarchitectured current collectors for pseudocapacitors. It first gives an introductory background on the design philosophy for nanoarchitectured current collectors based on the charge storage mechanism in pseudocapacitors and also outlines the consequent design considerations, then summarizes the recent achievements in design, fabrication, and utilization of nanoarchitectured current collectors for pseudocapacitors with representative results presented. A comprehensive overview of the strengths and weaknesses of nanoarchitectured current collectors for pseudocapacitors is also highlighted. At the end, future trends and opportunities associated with nanoarchitectured current collectors for pseudocapacitors are discussed.