Premium
Hierarchical Activated Carbon Fibers as a Sustainable Electrode and Natural Seawater as a Sustainable Electrolyte for High‐Performance Supercapacitor
Author(s) -
Challagulla Navakanth Vijay,
Vijayakumar Manavalan,
Sri Rohita Duggirala,
Elsa George,
Bharathi Sankar Ammaiyappan,
Narasinga Rao Tata,
Karthik Mani
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
energy technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.91
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 2194-4296
pISSN - 2194-4288
DOI - 10.1002/ente.202000417
Subject(s) - supercapacitor , electrolyte , materials science , capacitance , chemical engineering , electrochemistry , faraday efficiency , seawater , carbon fibers , electrode , activated carbon , nanotechnology , chemistry , composite material , organic chemistry , engineering , geology , adsorption , oceanography , composite number
This study demonstrates a facile, cost‐effective, green, and sustainable fabrication of supercapacitor devices using high surface area (2350 m 2 g −1 ) activated carbon fibers as supercapacitor electrode. The electrochemical behavior of the supercapacitor electrodes with different neutral electrolytes such as LiCl, KCl, and NaCl is carefully investigated and compared with natural seawater as an economic and sustainable electrolyte for the first time. The maximum specific capacitance of carbon fibers electrode in different electrolytes is around 101 Fg −1 in LiCl, 134 Fg −1 in KCl, 159 Fg −1 in NaCl, and 172 Fg −1 in natural seawater at a current density of 1 Ag −1 . Surprisingly, the seawater‐based supercapacitor exhibits a very good durability upon 10 000 charge–discharge cycles with 99% of capacitance retention and 99% of coulombic efficiency. For practical validity, integrated solar cell–based supercapacitor pouch cells are investigated. The seawater is explored as an eco‐friendly, cost‐effective, and alternative aqueous electrolyte, which may replace the existing aqueous‐based electrolytes for the fabrication of an economic and green supercapacitor device.