A High-Performance Structural Supercapacitor

Abstract

Considering the low specific capacitance of structural solid supercapacitors, which is due to the low ion diffusivity in solid electrolytes and the small specific surface area of some structural electrodes such as carbon fiber fabrics, novel structural supercapacitor designs are proposed and evaluated in this study based on supercapacitor-functional sandwich composite materials. Typical electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) are proposed with liquid organic electrolyte 1 M TEABF₄ in PC (propylene carbonate). In the innovative sandwich structured composites, supercapacitors are embedded in the skins and integrated in the honeycomb core where the aluminum faces of the core constitute the current collectors of the supercapacitor-functional core. The sandwich composite material exhibited a flexural modulus of 5.07 GPa and a flexural strength of 413.9 MPa. The EDLCs embedded in the skins increased the skin flexural modulus and strength by 47% and 56%, respectively, for embedded lateral EDLCs, and by 91% and 106%, respectively, for embedded lateral and longitudinal EDLCs. Compared to typical EDLCs with the same electrolyte, the structural supercapacitors in this study demonstrated superior specific electrode capacitance, C_sp,el = 153 F g^-1 for the honeycomb supercapacitor and C_sp,el = 95.7 F g^-1 for the skin supercapacitor, translating to overall structural composite material performance of 0.68 Wh/m²_honeycomb and 30.5 W/m²_honeycomb for the supercapacitor-functional honeycomb, and 0.02 Wh/m²_skin and 5.4 W/m²_skin for the supercapacitor-functional skin.

Keywords: composite sandwich structure; functional materials; liquid electrolyte; power device; structural supercapacitor.