Kishor Gupta

High surface area carbon from polyacrylonitrile for high-performance electrochemical capacitive energy storage

High surface area carbon with a surface area of 3550 m2 g−1 is synthesized via a low-cost, scalable process from polyacrylonitrile. The composite electrodes consisting of high surface area carbon and carbon nanotubes delivered a high capacitance of ∼174 F g−1 in symmetric configurations, and a high capacity of ∼150 mA h g−1 in asymmetric configurations against lithium metal with excellent rate-performance at practical mass loading and bulk densities.

High Surface Area Electrodes Derived from Polymer Wrapped Carbon Nanotubes for Enhanced Energy Storage Devices

Electrical double layer capacitors store energy on two adjacent layers, resulting in fast charging and discharging, but their energy density is limited by the available surface area. In this study, using poly(methyl methacrylate) assisted sonication, carbon nanotube buckypapers with specific surface area as high as 950 m(2)/g have been processed. Performance of these high surface area buckypapers have been evaluated as supercapacitor electrodes. The energy density of these high surface area electrodes at low power density of 0.68 kW/kg was 22.3 Wh/kg, and at high power density of 84 kW/kg was 3.13 Wh/kg using the ionic liquid electrolyte.