Science and Technology of Supercapacitors

**3**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

composite, supercapacitor

**1. Introduction**

Supercapacitor

Carbon-Based Composites for

*Mohmmad Khalid, Prerna Bhardwaj and Hamilton Varela*

Supercapacitor is an emerging technology that promises to play an advance role in new generation electronic devices and systems. Carbon (activated carbon, graphene and carbon nanotube) have attracted tremendous attention for their potential applications in supercapacitor technologies due to their excellent mechanical strength, good electrical conductivity, high electron mobilities, excellent chemical stability in acidic and basic medium, good thermal stability in wide range of temperature, various morphological structures, and large specific surface area. This chapter aims to assess the current status of carbon nanomaterials and their composites for supercapacitor application by discussing the literature in this field and presenting a perspective for future research in supercapacitor technologies.

**Keywords:** carbon nanomaterial, mesoporous carbon, graphene, carbon nanotube,

The ever-growing need for energy because of continuous depletion of fossil fuels and associated increasing air pollution, has caused the urge of developing sustainable and clean energy sources. Renewable energy sources like solar and wind energy systems are intermittent in nature and do not show potential impact unless the effective energy storage system is connected. Though, traditional batteries are used to store the electricity produced by renewable sources, their toxic components and high cost have precluded them from wide adoption in modern technologies. The traditional capacitors which are made of two metal plates separated by dielectric materials show very little tendency to store energy as the batteries store. One of the latest energy storage systems is supercapacitor. It is an emerging technology that promises to play pivotal role in laying out the roadmap of energy storage system for future. Supercapacitor technology provides a bridge between traditional capacitors and batteries, where supercapacitors could store greater amount of energy than the conventional capacitor and are able to deliver more power than existing batteries. Energy in supercapacitors is directly related to the capacitance of the electrode, which can be boosted by developing highly porous carbon or by introducing pseudocapacitive materials into the carbon network. By this way, the energy storage capability of the supercapacitor electrodes can be increased at much high level than traditional capacitors. Besides having high power capability than batteries, their charge storing and charge releasing mechanism is efficiently reversible, so they are extremely promising candidates with long charge/discharge life. However, their energy storing capacity is still far behind
