An international team of researchers has developed a supercapacitor composed of graphene and carbon nanotubes that is claimed flexible enough to be woven into clothing and potentially powerful enough to offer a real alternative to batteries for use in portable devices. Capable of being charged and discharged in excess of 10,000 cycles, the new supercapacitor also promises to be significantly lighter, faster to charge, and more robust than current battery technology.

Researchers from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, produced the supercapacitor by heating and bonding micro-scale graphene sheets and carbon nanotubes to form a continuous, interconnected network of filaments. The result is reported to be a complex hybrid fiber so densely packed that its capacitive surface area is a whopping 396 sq m (4,262 sq ft) per gram.