Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, Nam-gu, Pohang, Korea.
ChemSusChem. 2012 Mar 12;5(3):535-41. doi: 10.1002/cssc.201100511. Epub 2012 Feb 29.
Supercapacitors can store and deliver energy by a simple charge separation, and thus they could be an attractive option to meet transient high energy density in operating fuel cells and in electric and hybrid electric vehicles. To achieve such requirements, intensive studies have been carried out to improve the volumetric capacitance in supercapacitors using various types and forms of carbons including carbon nanotubes and graphenes. However, conventional porous carbons are not suitable for use as electrode material in supercapacitors for such high energy density applications. Here, we show that edge-enriched porous carbons are the best electrode material for high energy density supercapacitors to be used in vehicles as an auxiliary powertrain. Molten potassium hydroxide penetrates well-aligned graphene layers vertically and consequently generates both suitable pores that are easily accessible to the electrolyte and a large fraction of electrochemically active edge sites. We expect that our findings will motivate further research related to energy storage devices and also environmentally friendly electric vehicles.
超级电容器可以通过简单的电荷分离来存储和传递能量，因此它们可能是满足运行燃料电池和电动汽车及混合动力汽车中瞬态高能量密度的有吸引力的选择。为了实现这些要求，已经进行了大量研究，以使用包括碳纳米管和石墨烯在内的各种类型和形式的碳来提高超级电容器的体积电容。然而，传统的多孔碳不适合用作这种高能量密度应用的超级电容器的电极材料。在这里，我们表明，富含边缘的多孔碳是用于车辆辅助动力系统的高能量密度超级电容器的最佳电极材料。熔融氢氧化钾垂直地渗透到排列良好的石墨烯层中，从而产生既适合电解质进入的合适孔，又具有大量电化学活性边缘位的多孔碳。我们期望我们的发现将激发与储能装置和环保电动汽车相关的进一步研究。
