ultracapacitor

alt=Supercapacitor, upright=1.5, Schematic illustration of a supercapacitor
upright=1.5, A diagram that shows a hierarchical classification of supercapacitors and capacitors of related types

A supercapacitor (SC), also called an ultracapacitor, is a high-capacity capacitor, with a capacitance value much higher than solid-state capacitors but with lower voltage limits. It bridges the gap between electrolytic capacitors and rechargeable batteries. It typically stores 10 to 100 times more energy per unit volume or mass than electrolytic capacitors, can accept and deliver charge much faster than batteries, and tolerates many more charge and discharge cycles than rechargeable batteries.

Unlike ordinary capacitors, supercapacitors do not use the conventional solid dielectric, but rather, they use electrostatic double-layer capacitance and electrochemical pseudocapacitance, both of which contribute to the total energy storage of the capacitor.

Supercapacitors are used in applications requiring many rapid charge/discharge cycles, rather than long-term compact energy storage: in automobiles, buses, trains, cranes and elevators, where they are used for regenerative braking, short-term energy storage, or burst-mode power delivery. Smaller units are used as power backup for static random-access memory (SRAM).

Background

The electrochemical charge storage mechanisms in solid media can be roughly (there is an overlap in some systems) classified into 3 types:

* ''Electrostatic double-layer capacitors'' (''EDLCs'') use carbon electrodes or derivatives with much higher electrostatic double-layer capacitance than electrochemical pseudocapacitance, achieving separation of charge in a Helmholtz double layer at the interface between the surface of a conductive electrode and an electrolyte. The separation of charge is of the order of a few ångströms (0.3–0.8  nm), much smaller than in a conventional capacitor. The electric charge in EDLCs is stored in a two-dimensional interphase (surface) of an electronic conductor (e.g. carbon particle) and ionic conductor (electrolyte solution).
* '' Batteries with solid electroactive materials'' store charge in bulk solid phases by virtue of redox chemical reactions.
* ''Electrochemical supercapacitors'' (ECSCs) fall in between EDLCs and batteries. ECSCs use metal oxide or conducting polymer electrodes with a high amount of electrochemical pseudocapacitance additional to the double-layer capacitance. Pseudocapacitance is achieved by Faradaic electron charge-transfer with redox reactions, intercalation or electrosorption.

In solid-state capacitors, the mobile charges are electrons, and the gap between electrodes is a layer of a dielectric. In electrochemical double-layer capacitors, the mobile charges are solvated ions (cations and anions), and the effective thickness is determined on each of the two electrodes by their electrochemical double layer structure. In batteries the charge is stored in the bulk volume of solid phases, which have both electronic and ionic conductivities. In electrochemical supercapacitors, the charge storage mechanisms either combine the double-layer and battery mechanisms, or are based on mechanisms, which are intermediate between true double layer and true battery.

History

The number of non-patent publications about supercapacitors by year has been increasing 10-fold every 7 years since ca. 1990

In the early 1950s, General Electric engineers began experimenting with porous carbon electrodes in the design of capacitors, from the design of fuel cells and rechargeable batteries. Activated charcoal is an electrical conductor that is an extremely porous "spongy" form of carbon with a high specific surface area. In 1957 H. Becker developed a "Low voltage electrolytic capacitor with porous carbon electrodes". He believed that the energy was stored as a charge in the carbon pores as in the pores of the etched foils of electrolytic capacitors. Because the double layer mechanism was not known by him at the time, he wrote in the patent: "It is not known exactly what is taking place in the component if it is used for energy storage, but it leads to an extremely high capacity."

General Electric did not immediately pursue this work. In 1966 researchers at Standard Oil of Ohio (SOHIO) developed another version of the component as "electrical energy storage apparatus", while working on experimental fuel cell designs.J. G. Schindall, The Change of the Ultra-Capacitors, IEEE Spectrum, November 200

/ref> The nature of electrochemical energy storage was not described in this patent. Even in 1970, the electrochemical capacitor patented by Donald L. Boos was registered as an electrolytic capacitor with activated carbon electrodes.

Early electrochemical capacitors used two aluminum foils covered with activated carbon (the electrodes) that were soaked in an electrolyte and separated by a thin porous insulator. This design gave a capacitor with a capacitance on the order of one farad, significantly higher than electrolytic capacitors of the same dimensions. This basic mechanical design remains the basis of most electrochemical capacitors.

SOHIO did not commercialize their invention, licensing the technology to NEC, who finally marketed the results as "supercapacitors" in 1978, to provide backup power for computer memory.

Between 1975 and 1980 Brian Evans Conway conducted extensive fundamental and development work on ruthenium oxide