Fiber supercapacitors have attracted significant interest as potential textile energy storage devices due to their remarkable flexibility and rapid charge/discharge capabilities. This study describes the fabrication of a composite fiber supercapacitor (FSC) electrode through a multi-shell architecture, featuring layers of carbon nanotube (CNT) conductive shells and MnO2 nanoparticle active shells. The number of layers was adjusted to assess their impact on FSC energy storage performance. Increasing the number of shells reduced electrode resistance and enhanced pseudocapacitive characteristics. Compared to the MnS@1 electrode, the MnS@5 electrode exhibited a high areal capacitance of 301.2 mF/cm2, a 411% increase, but showed a higher charge transfer resistance (RCT) of 701.6 Ω. This is attributed to reduced ion diffusion and charge transfer ability resulting from the thicker multi-shell configuration. These results indicate that fine-tuning the quantity of shells is crucial for achieving an optimal balance between energy storage efficiency and stability.

Fibrous supercapacitors (FSs), owing to their high power density, good safety characteristic, and high flexibility, have recently been in the spotlight as energy storage devices for wearable electronics. However, despite these advantages, FCs face many challenges related to their active material of carbon fiber (CF). CF has low surface area and poor wettability between electrode and electrolyte, which result in low capacitance and poor long-term stability at high current densities. To overcome these limits, fibrous supercapacitors made using surface-activated CF (FS-SACF) are here suggested; these materials have improved specific surface area and better wettability, obtained by introducing porous structure and oxygen-containing functional groups on the CF surface, respectively, through surface engineering. The FS-SACF shows an improved ion diffusion coefficient and better electrochemical performance, including high specific capacity of 223.6 mF cm2 at current density of 10 μA cm2, high-rate performance of 171.2 mF cm2 at current density of 50.0 μA cm2, and remarkable, ultrafast cycling stability (96.2 % after 1,000 cycles at current density of 250.0 μA cm2). The excellent electrochemical performance is definitely due to the effects of surface functionalization on CF, leading to improved specific surface area and superior ion diffusion capability.