What is a graphene supercapacitor?

What is a graphene supercapacitor?

Graphene is often considered a substitute for activated carbon in supercapacitors, partly due to its high relative surface area, which is one of the limitations of capacitance. A higher surface area means better static charge storage. In addition, graphene based supercapacitors will utilize their lightweight characteristics, elastic properties, and mechanical strength.

Graphene is often considered a substitute for activated carbon in supercapacitors, partly due to its higher relative surface area (larger than activated carbon). Surface area is one of the limitations of capacitance, and a higher surface area means better static charge storage. In addition, graphene based supercapacitors will utilize their lightweight characteristics, elastic properties, and mechanical strength.

Graphene Supercapacitor

It is said that graphene based supercapacitors can store almost as much energy as lithium-ion batteries, complete charging and discharging in a few seconds, and keep all of this in tens of thousands of charging cycles. One way to achieve this goal is to use highly porous graphene with a large internal surface area (made by filling graphene powder into coin shaped units, drying them, and pressing them).

Graphene is a thin layer of pure carbon, tightly packed and bonded together in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. It is widely regarded as a "miracle material" due to its rich and astonishing properties: it is the thinnest compound known to the human body at an atomic thickness, as well as the most famous conductor. It also has astonishing intensity and light absorption characteristics, and is even considered eco-friendly and sustainable because carbon is widely present in nature and a part of the human body.

Common applications of supercapacitors

Supercapacitors are currently used to obtain power from regenerative braking systems and release power to assist hybrid buses in accelerating, provide starting power and voltage stability in start/stop systems, provide backup and peak power for automotive applications, assist in train acceleration, open aircraft doors for power failure events, help improve the reliability and stability of the blade pitch system energy grid, capture energy and provide explosive power to assist in improving operations, provide energy to data centers between power failures, and start backup power systems such as diesel generators or fuel cells, and provide energy storage to consolidate the output of renewable facilities and improve grid stability.