Guide for the development and evaluation of supercapacitors with the proposal of a novel design to improve their performance

Abstract

Supercapacitors, as an energy storage device, have shown great potential as a tool to help solve today's energy problems. There are currently three types of supercapacitors: electrochemical double layer, pseudocapacitors and hybrid supercapacitors. They have aroused great interest due to their high-power density, fast charging and discharging and good cyclic behaviour, and nowadays, it is necessary to continue their study in order to extend their capabilities. This work proposes a design and fabrication method for supercapacitors with a materials guide that, firstly, guides researchers in the development of supercapacitors and, secondly, proposes an improvement of the current supercapacitor design to ensure parallelism of the collectors, avoid corrosive processes of the collectors using graphite and avoid pad breakage. All this is carried out with 3D design and additive manufacturing or 3D printing technologies, which means a reproducible solution with low available resources. In addition, the model proposed here avoids the breakage of the pads that act as electrodes by designing an intermediate body that prevents the Swagelok® cell thread from being consumed.