High-Energy-Density Carbon Supercapacitors Incorporating a Plastic-Crystal-Based Nonaqueous Redox-Active Gel Polymer Electrolyte

Addition of redox additives in electrolytes to enhance the electrochemical activity at electrode-electrolyte interfaces is one of the prime approaches these days to develop high-energy-density supercapacitors. Here, we report an investigation on a quasi-solid-state supercapacitor, fabricated with a nonaqueous, gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) based on a mixture of a plastic crystal succinonitrile and an ionic liquid 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethyl sulfonyl) imide, added with a redox additive hydroquinone (HQ), immobilized in a polymer poly(vinylidine fluoride-cohexafluoropropylene). The HQ-incorporated GPE is observed to be a freestanding, easily processible, and reusable film, showing excellent flexibility and thermal stability up to similar to 100 degrees C. The high ionic conductivity (similar to 4.2 mS cm(-1)) and wide electrochemical stability window (similar to 5.0 V) through linear sweep voltammetry measurements make the optimum composition of GPE a potential electrolyte for high-energy-density supercapacitors. The symmetric supercapacitor coin cells have been fabricated with peanut shell-derived porous carbon electrodes separated by GPE films. The electrochemical activity due to the presence of HQ at carbon electrode-GPE interfaces introduces additional pseudocapacitance over the double-layer capacitance, leading to enhanced overall specific capacitance (289 F g(-1)), and hence corresponds to the high specific energy (similar to 40 Wh kg(-1)) and maximum power (similar to 20 kW kg(-1)). The capacitor cell shows prolonged cyclic profile up to similar to 10 000 charge-discharge cycles with ca. 85-93% Coulombic efficiency.

Automated summary

The study introduces a quasi-solid-state supercapacitor with a nonaqueous gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) containing redox additive hydroquinone, showing high ionic conductivity and wide electrochemical stability window, making it a potential electrolyte for high-energy-density supercapacitors.