Charge Me Slowly, I Am in a Hurry: Optimizing Charge-Discharge Cycles in Nanoporous Supercapacitors

Nanoporous supercapacitors attract much attention as green energy storage devices with remarkable cyclability and high power and energy densities. However, their use in high-frequency applications is limited by relatively slow charging processes, while accelerating charging without compromising the energy storage still remains a challenging task. Here, we study in detail the charging and discharging behavior of nanoporous super capacitors with narrow pores, which provide exceptionally high capacitances and stored energy densities. We scrutinize the dynamic modes of charging, revealing, in particular, a transient formation of crowded and dilute ionic-liquid phases inside the pores, which leads to co-ion trapping and correspondingly slow charging. We show how trapping can be circumvented by applying a slow voltage sweep, and we demonstrate that it can accelerate the overall charging process considerably if the sweep rate is chosen appropriately. While one might be tempted to apply a similar strategy to discharging, we find that the best discharge rates are obtained when the voltage is switched off in a step-like fashion, whereby the optimal charge and discharge times differ a few-fold. We unveil the scaling laws for such optimal quantities, which allow one to predict quantitatively the charging behavior for realistically long pores. On the basis of our findings, we propose an optimal charge-discharge cycle and elaborate on optimization strategies.