Applications and challenges of porous carbon with different dimensions in supercapacitors—a mini review

Abstract

The rapid development of modern electronic technology is in urgent need of further breakthroughs to actualize high-energy, high-power, and long cycling energy storage equipment. Carbon-based supercapacitors (CSs) are potential high-power devices that can stock electrical energy at the electrode–electrolyte interface rather than by diffusing ions inside electrodes. However, the commercial CSs using active carbon (AC) suffer from restricted energy densities on account of relatively small specific surface area, poor porosity, and low electrochemical activity. In recent years, various tactics have been applied to enhance the electrochemical properties of carbon-based electrode, and fruitful successes have been achieved. This mini review first introduces the concerned charge storage mechanisms of CSs, which is followed by a straightforward summary of the pivotal factors affecting the electrochemical performance. Then, the novel fabrication strategies of porous carbon at different dimensions are exemplified and summarized to prepare large-capacitance electrodes. The current challenges and promising future research for exploiting the state-of-the-art supercapacitors are also discussed.

Recent Trends in Highly Porous Structured Carbon Electrodes for Supercapacitor Applications: A Review

“…Ion movement in the pores of an electrode may differ from that in the bulk electrolyte solution. If the pores are too tiny, ionic transport is hindered and cannot form a capacitively separating double layer [29].…”

“…This information was gathered from Mendeley and demonstrates that the number of research articles on porous carbon-based electrodes for SCs applications has steadily grown over the last several years (Figure 1b). Review reports on using carbon materials in supercapacitor applications, including sulfur-doped carbon, carbon generated from biomass, and graphene, have been published [10,23,[25][26][27][28][29]. However, recently, there has been a surge in studies looking into the synthesis and use of porous carbon-based electrode materials to improve SC performance.…”

Recent Progress Using Graphene Oxide and Its Composites for Supercapacitor Applications: A Review

“…PC goes through a fast and reversible faradaic process on electrodes to store energy, and the charge storage mechanism is caused by a shift in the valence state of a component in the electrode caused by electron transport, as shown in Figure 1c (ii) [43]. On the other hand, hybrid SCs exhibit both charge storage mechanisms [44]. Hybrid supercapacitors are divided into asymmetric and symmetric SCs.…”

Facile Synthesis of Functionalized Porous Carbon by Direct Pyrolysis of Anacardium occidentale Nut-Skin Waste and Its Utilization towards Supercapacitors

“…[ 4 , 5 ]. Among energy storage devices, supercapacitors are considered attractive due to their advantages of low cost, superior power output efficiency, fast charge–discharge rates, long-cycle stability, higher energy density, light-weight, low maintenance, wide range of temperatures, and so on [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Supercapacitors can be classified into two main categories based on the energy storage mechanism of electrode materials: electric double-layer (EDL) capacitors and pseudocapacitors [ 4 , 10 ].…”