Advanced asymmetric supercapacitor based on conducting polymer and aligned carbon nanotubes with controlled nanomorphology

Yue Zhou, Haiping Xu, Noa Lachman, Mehdi Ghaffari, Shan Wu, Yang Liu, Asli Ugur, Karen K. Gleason, Brian L. Wardle, Q. M. Zhang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

94 Scopus citations

Abstract

An asymmetric supercapacitor, exploiting nm-scale conformal coating of conducting polymer (CP) on aligned carbon nanotubes (A-CNTs) as the negative electrode and ultra-high density A-CNTs as the positive electrode, has been developed. The conformal CP coating on the A-CNTs enhances charge storage while the aligned nanotube morphology provides straight and fast ion transport pathways. The A-CNT electrode, densified using a unique mechanical method, possesses high volumetric capacitance while preserving the aligned morphology to maintain the high power, provides an ideal positive electrode for the asymmetric supercapacitor. By complementary tailoring of the asymmetric electrodes, the device exhibits a wide operation voltage of 4V with maximum energy and power densities of 82.8WhL-1 and 130.6kWL-1 in volumetric performance. In this paper, a new method was introduced which is simple but can determine directly the energy storage efficiency of a supercapacitor cell. An equivalent circuit was developed to model the performance of each electrode and investigate the asymmetric design of the cell.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)176-185
Number of pages10
JournalNano Energy
Volume9
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2014
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
MIT׳s Microsystems Technology Laboratories
National Science FoundationDMR-0819762, ECS-0335765
National Science Foundation
Air Force Office of Scientific ResearchFA9550-11-1-0192
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Army Research OfficeW911NF-07-D-0004
Army Research Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Keywords

    • Aligned carbon nanotube
    • Energy storage efficiency
    • Equivalent circuit
    • Ionic liquids
    • Supercapacitor
    • Volumetric electrochemical performance

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