The opening of the largest supercapacitor factory in Europe in Großröhrsdorf,
The SkelMod 51V 177F supercapacitor module is the only rail-certified
SuperBattery is an innovative technology combining supercapacitor and battery
Supercapacitors have been around since the 1950s, but it''s only been in recent years that their potential has become clear. Let''s take a look at these computer components that store energy just like batteries but use completely different principles.
Before we get to supercapacitors, it''s worth quickly explaining what a regular capacitor is to help demonstrate what makes supercapacitors special. If you''ve ever looked at a computer motherboard or virtually any circuit board, you''ll have seen these electronic components.
A capacitor stores electricity as a static electric field. This is the same thing that happens when you walk across a carpet in socks and build up an electric charge, only to discharge it when you touch a door handle. You were acting as a capacitor!
Inside a typical capacitor, you''ll find two conductors separated by an insulating material. Positive charge accumulates on one conductor and negative charge on the other. Thus, there''s an electrostatic field between the two plates. There are many different ways to design a capacitor, but they all have the basic components of two charge plates and an insulator (dielectric). The insulator can be air, ceramic, glass, plastic film. liquid, or anything else that''s bad at conducting electricity.
Capacitors have many uses in electronics. In computers and other digital systems, they make sure that information isn''t lost if there''s a momentary loss of power. They also act as filters to clean up electrical surges that might otherwise damage sensitive electronics.
Capacitors and batteries are similar in the sense that they can both store electrical power and then release it when needed. The big difference is that capacitors store power as an electrostatic field, while batteries use a chemical reaction to store and later release power.
Inside a battery are two terminals (the anode and the cathode) with an electrolyte between them. An electrolyte is a substance (usually a liquid) that contained ions. Ions are atoms or molecules with an electrical charge.
There''s also a separator within the electrolyte that only allows ions to pass through it. When you charge the battery, ions move from one side of the separator to the other. When you discharge the battery the opposite happens. The movement of ions chemically stores electricity or turns that stored chemical energy back into an electric current.
Related: Why Do Lithium-Ion Batteries Explode?
Supercapacitors are also known as ultracapacitors or double-layer capacitors. The key difference between supercapacitors and regular capacitors is capacitance. That just means that supercapacitors can store a much larger electric field than regular capacitors.
In this diagram, you can see another major difference when it comes to supercapacitors. Like a battery (and unlike a traditional capacitor) a supercapacitor has an electrolyte. This means that it uses both electrostatic and electrochemical storage principles to hold an electric charge.
This is a gross oversimplification, and the really technical aspects of this would take much longer to explain. The most important thing to know about supercapacitors is that they offer the same general characteristics as capacitors, but can provide many times the energy storage and energy delivery of the classic design.
Supercapacitors offer many advantages over, for example, lithium-ion batteries. Supercapacitors can charge up much more quickly than batteries. The electrochemical process creates heat and so charging has to happen at a safe rate to prevent catastrophic battery failure. Supercapacitors can also deliver their stored power much more quickly than an electrochemical battery, for the same reason. If the battery discharges too quickly it can also lead to catastrophic failure.
Related: How to Know When It''s Time to Replace Your Laptop''s Battery
Supercapacitors are also far more durable than batteries, in particular lithium-ion batteries. While the batteries you find in phones, laptops, and electric cars start to wear out after a few hundred charge cycles, supercapacitors can be charged and emptied in excess of a million times with no degradation. The same goes for voltage delivery. A 12V battery might only provide 11.4V in a few years, but a supercapacitor will provide the same voltage after more than a decade of use.
The biggest drawback compared to lithium-ion batteries is that supercapacitors can''t discharge their stored power as slowly as a lithium-ion battery, which makes it unsuitable for applications where a device has to go long periods of time without charging.
So, as things stand at the time of writing, supercapacitors aren''t a drop-in replacement for lithium-ion batteries or other battery technologies, but there are a growing number of jobs that supercapacitors are perfect for.
You''ve probably used products that contain supercapacitors and didn''t even know it. The first supercapacitors were created in the 1950s by a General Electric engineer named Howard Becker. In 1978, NEC coined the name "supercapacitor" and used the device as a form of backup power for computer memory.
Today you''ll find them in laptops, GPS units, handheld computers, camera flashes, and many other electronics devices. The Coleman FlashCell used a supercapacitor instead of a battery. This meant it ran half as long as a traditional battery-powered model, but charged up in 90 seconds instead of hours.
Similarly, the S-Pen in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 used a supercapacitor to power the wireless functions of the stylus. The power would run out in a few minutes of heavy use or after 30s seconds of stand time, but it only takes 40 seconds to fill it up again.
Related: How Does an Electric Vehicle Work?
Supercapacitors are finding a home in the world of hybrid and electric vehicles as well. They are perfect for capturing and releasing the power from regenerative braking, which is a dynamic short-term load. Vehicles such as public transport buses or trams are also suitable for supercapacitors. They only need enough power to get to the next stop, where they''ll charge up again in seconds or minutes. Since supercapacitors don''t really wear down, this fixed public transport cycle makes a lot of sense for the technology.
With the way research on supercapacitors is going, it seems likely that one day we''ll have supercapacitor batteries. These would be devices that have the durability and speed of supercapacitors, but with the energy density and long operational time of batteries. In 2016, scientists from the University of Central Florida created a prototype flexible supercapacitor with a higher energy density than current supercapacitors and a 30,000 charge cycle without degradation.
New materials on the nanoscale and experiments with graphene all point towards the possibility that supercapacitors with much higher energy densities are possible. Even if they don''t ever match lithium-ion batteries, a usable amount of charge, coupled with rapid recharge time could put them places where batteries currently fill a role.
Then again, there are other technologies in competition with supercapacitors. The most important of which is the fabled solid-state battery and recently graphene-infused traditional lithium-ion batteries have shown promise as well. Whichever fast-charging, durable, energy-dense technology wins the race, we''ll all be winners.
Related: What Is Fast Charging, and How Does It Work?
In order to understand what an ultracapacitor is we must first understand what a typical capacitor is. According to Von Luke James from Power & Beyond, a “typical capacitor is made from two metallic plates (electrodes) that separate a dielectric substance between them” and when “voltage is applied, electrons gather at one of the electrodes, thereby storing the electrical charge”.
Such capacitors are commonly used in consumer electronics to block direct current in circuits while allowing alternating current to pass through, to store and release energy in electronic circuits, among many other use cases.
James points out that an ultracapacitor works in a similar way, except in the ultracapacitor, “the wedging material is an electrolytic solution rather than a dielectric substance” and when voltage is applied, an “electric double layer” is formed, aligning positive and negative charge along “the boundaries of the electrodes and the electrolytic solution”, which acts as “a place of storage for electrical charge”.
Batteries and ultracapacitors share many similarities, such as having the same electrochemical structure involving electrodes and electrolytic solutions. However, the main difference is that in a battery, chemical reactions take place in the solution between the electrodes, whereas in an ultracapacitor there is only electron movement.
Due to the way they are designed, instances where a lot of energy needs to be delivered quickly can significantly damage a battery and its lifespan. In comparison, ultracapacitors specialise in delivering energy rapidly but can’t store as much energy as a battery. Simply put, ultracapacitors have a higher power density than batteries but lower energy density in comparison. In many use cases, batteries and ultracapacitors will be used together to mitigate each other’s weaknesses.
While renewables such as solar and wind are great alternatives to fossil fuels from an environmental perspective, there are still many obstacles that need to be tackled in terms of storing and utilising that energy. Such issues are usually caused by the intermittent nature of renewable energy.
In a journal article investigating the suitability of ultracapacitors for renewable energy applications, Jie Zhang, Min Gu and Xi Chen remark that ultracapacitors “offer a suitable solution for mitigating voltage fluctuations, enabling smooth power transmission, and storing excess energy, especially in applications requiring a fast charge and discharge cycles”.
When it comes to solar energy, for example, batteries are currently widely used to store power generated by PV cells. However, due to the fluctuating power supply and consumption involved in this process, the lifespan and capacity of the storage system are negatively affected. This issue is also common for other types of renewable energy such as wind. In the past decade, ultracapacitors have emerged as a way to “balance the demand for power and the fluctuations in charging within solar energy systems”.
Ultracapacitors can be used with renewables.
A recent technology strategy assessment conducted by the US Department of Energy highlights that there are many applications for ultracapacitors outside of renewable power generation:
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