Development of High Energy and Power Density Solid State Supercapacitors

Many military and commercial applications have turned to power electronics to run a variety of systems efficiently, quietly, cheaply, and precisely. Therefore, there is an urgent need for efficient energy storage systems with both high energy and power densities. Supercapacitors have gained substantial attention for these applications since they offer outstanding advantages over conventional capacitors and batteries such as storing energy longer, discharging faster, longer shelf life, and excellent reversibility. However, current commercially available supercapacitors usually have a specific energy density of less than 10 Wh/kg, which becomes the limiting factor in system design and many applications. nGimat proposes to develop new solid-state supercapacitors based on solid state electrolytes and graphene based electrodes. The graphene will be processed to significantly increase the effective surface area and decorated with oxides to introduce additional psudocapacitance and increase permittivity. These supercapacitors have the advantages of high specific energy density, power density, operating voltage, cycling stability, chemical density, and charge-discharge rate based on the significant enhancement of electric double layer capacitance, psudocapacitance, permittivity, and operation voltage. Therefore, the proposed supercapacitor energy storage devices will enable a significant overall improvement in future power electronics systems enabling new military and commercial capabilities.