Gel Electrolyte for Supercapacitors, Nonaqueous

Introduction

The utilization of a solid ion conductor as the electrolyte component has been attempted in order to fabricate an all-solid supercapacitor (also referred to as electrochemical capacitor) device, similar to rechargeable battery systems. The merits of the solidification of the electrolyte in such energy devices would be to avoid the risk of electrolyte leakage from the cell that would cause various problems on the reliability and safety. A solid-state supercapacitor using electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) using polymeric electrolyte was first reported in the early 1990s. High specific capacitance was observed under a limited charge–discharge cycling condition. However, further improvements in the system were required to obtain practical capacitor performances. In designing such all-solid electrochemical devices and in order to maintain the contact between solid electrode and solid electrolyte phases, a kind of “flexible interface” is needed, where the fast charge (or...