Nanoporous carbons have become a material of interest in many applications such as electrochemical double layer capacitors (supercapacitors). Supercapacitors are being studied for their potential in storing electrical energy storage from intermittent sources and in use as power sources that can be charged rapidly. However, a lack of understanding of the charge storage mechanism within a supercapacitor makes it difficult to optimize them. Two components of this challenge are the difficulties in experimentally characterizing the sub-nanoporous structure of carbon electrode materials and the electrical performance of the supercapacitors. This work provides a means to accurately characterize the porous structure of sub-nanoporus carbon materials and identifies the current limitations in characterizing the electrical performance of a supercapacitor cell. Future work may focus on the relationship between the sub-nano porous structure of the carbon electrode and the capacitance of supercapacitors, and on the elucidation of charge storage mechanisms.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/42698 |
| Date | 21 November 2013 |
| Creators | Caguiat, Johnathon |
| Contributors | Jia, Charles Q. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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