Science Daily April 18, 2024 The difficulty in characterizing the complex structures of nanoporous carbon electrodes has led to a lack of clear design principles with which to improve supercapacitors. Charge is stored within the porous carbon structure, and pore size has thus long been viewed as the key factor for determining storage capacity. An international team of researchers (UK, France) evaluated commercial nanoporous carbons and did not find a correlation between pore size and capacitance. Rather, their combination of simulations and data measurements indicated that the key factor was the extent of disorder, as smaller graphene-like domains could more […]
Tag Archives: Supercapacitors
Researchers fabricate novel flexible supercapacitors on paper
Nanowerk March 6, 2023 Paper’s inherent characteristics can be exploited to overcome the limitations of conventional substrates, such as weak adhesion and large mass densities. Researchers in South Korea proposed a method for fabricating vertically integrated multi-electrodes within only a single sheet of paper. Despite the randomly distributed fibrous networks in paper, the multi-layered electrodes were uniformly formed and completely separated by applying a removable hydrophobic wax barrier confinement inside a single sheet of paper. Conventional two-dimensional planes can be used as three-dimensional scaffolds. The highly integrated electrodes and circuit systems were located within a sheet of paper, making a […]
The hidden behavior of supercapacitor materials
Phys.org November 9, 2021 Polyaniline (PANI) is conductive and can be used as the electrode in a supercapacitor device, storing charge by trapping ions. To maximize energy storage, an international team of researchers (UK, Brazil) developed a novel method of depositing a thin layer of PANI onto a forest of conductive carbon nanotubes. This composite material makes an excellent supercapacitive electrode. However, as the composite is made up of different materials, it is difficult to separate and fully understand the complex processes which occur during charging and discharging. The researchers used Distribution of Relaxation Times analysis technique to examine complex […]
Extremely fast electrochromic supercapacitors
Phys.org January 7, 2021 Mesoporous metal oxides consisting of fully interconnected network structures with small pores have high surface areas and decreased ion intercalation distances, making them ideal for use in high-performance electrochromic supercapacitors. An international team of researchers (South Korea, Sweden) used an evaporation-induced self-assembly process to deposit a film of tungsten trioxide with pores, where the porous architecture increased the speed of switching and capacitance in the material compared to conventional tungsten trioxide thin films. They developed multifunctional electrochromic supercapacitors based on amorphous mesoporous WO3 films. They attribute its superior performance to its large surface area and amorphous […]
Novel approach improves graphene-based supercapacitors
EurekAlert August 3, 2020 Researchers in Australia have developed a technique to improve the performance of quasi‐solid‐state supercapacitors made by graphitized silicon carbide on silicon electrodes and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)+H2SO4 gel electrolyte. They increased the specific capacitance of the cell up to 3‐fold resulting from a simple agent‐free, in situ, electrochemical treatment leading to functionalization of the graphitic electrodes. The functionalization of the electrodes simultaneously enables redox reactions, without adding any redox agent, and increases the overall capacitance…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE