Fabrication of low cost Supercapacitors and their characterization

Current research and development on electrochemical power sources are mainly focussed on fuel cells, batteries and electrochemical capacitors and are directed towards obtaining high specific energy, high specific power, long cycle life at relatively low cost. Supercapacitors, ultracapacitors, or electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) differs from a regular capacitor by the property that it has a very high capacitance in the order of Farads. The supercapacitor is ideal for energy storage which undergoes frequent charge-discharge cycles at high current and short durations. Due to their high specific power, supercapacitors have applications including automobiles, electric vehicles and various hybrid electric vehicles.This Thesis describes the low cost fabrication of supercapacitors based on activated carbon coated lead electrode and its characterization by various electrochemical techniques such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and constant current charge-discharge test (chronopotentiometry).