Graphene-related materials in aqueous dispersions for supercapacitor electrodes.

Supercapacitors are devices that store electricity, important in applications requiring high power (e.g engine starters) or rapid charging, e.g. to store energy of slowing down vehicle.

Advantage of supercapacitors is high power density, rapid charging/discharging and stable performance over large number of charging cycles but the energy density needs to be improved to be comparable to batteries.

The project suggests using environmentally friendly water based dispersions based on graphene-related materials (GRMs) for preparation of high surface area supercapacitor electrodes. New approach designed in our group allows to dissolve fine powders of high surface area (~3000 m2/g) GRMs in water.

Simple drying of the dispersions on metal foil allows prparing high surface area electrodes as required for supercapacitors.

The dispersion and inks will be optimized for best performance in supercapacitors and for industry scale methods of deposition including spray coating and ink jet printing.