Rapid Access: Structural Evaluation of Nanoporous carbon materials for in-situ supercapacitors

Electrochemical double-layer (EDL) supercapacitors are an important, emergent class of energy storage devices that can deliver much higher power densities than batteries. The energy storage mechanism is in the formation of a layer of ions at electrode surfaces as the supercapacitor is charged – the EDL. Our understanding of this mechanism is currently limited by the absence of experimental techniques to determine the structure of the ions and solvent molecules at the EDL in atomistic-detail. In this experiment we will study to pore scale uptake of an organic electrolyte in three different nanoporous carbon from which we will be able to observe if there are any changes in salt concentration compared to the bulk due to the small size of the pores.