SBIR Phase II: High Performance Supercapacitors Based on Nano-engineered Electrodes

1. Intellectual Merit Supercapacitors are indispensable energy storage and conversion devices with wide applications. Agiltron is developing a next generation EDLC supercapacitor that has more than two times the energy density and ten times the power density of the best conventional carbon-based supercapacitors. In Phase I we successfully fabricated the novel TiC/TiC-CDC core/shell nanostructure electrode, demonstrating the predicted 2X energy density in a test device. We then calculated the power density, predicting a 10X improvement over conventional supercapacitors. This combination of high energy density and high power density has not been attained before. In Phase II, we plan to produce supercapacitor prototypes, and optimize, standardize, and scale up the material fabrication process, including the investigation of roll-to-roll manufacturing of the proposed supercapacitor electrodes. At the end of Phase II we will have developed a prototype process capable of commercializing these high performance supercapacitors. 2. Broader Impact Supercapacitors are indispensable energy storage devices because their performance bridges those of batteries and conventional capacitors. The most significant challenges for supercapacitors are to increase their energy density and power density. Our proposed core/shell nanostructured supercapacitors address these two challenges simultaneously. The proposed superior supercapacitors will meet the needs of quickly growing markets of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), city buses, rails (heavy rail vehicles, tramways and metro), and renewable energy systems (wind power and solar power) to satisfy the peak power needs in a cost-effective manner that battery cannot provide. Other potential domestic applications include UPS systems, cell phones, PDAs, medical devices, AMRs, notebooks, communication equipment, sensors, actuators, car audio components, welding machines, solar lighting, inverters, cameras, copy machines, and power supplies. Core/shell nanostructured materials offer the potential to provide multifunctional application in supercapacitors, solar cells, and batteries. The success of this program will stimulate enthusiastic academic and industrial interests for using core/shell nanostructured materials to address significant energy problems, and thus open new horizons that have not been imagined before.