SYDNEY, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers have made a major leap forward in the global race to build energy storage devices that are both fast and powerful.
The research team revealed a new kind of carbon-based material that allows supercapacitors to store as much energy as traditional lead-acid batteries, while delivering power far faster than conventional batteries can manage, according to a statement released Tuesday by Australia's Monash University.
The breakthrough paved the way for next-generation applications in electrified transport, grid stabilization and consumer electronics, the statement said.
Supercapacitors, which store charge electrostatically rather than through chemical reactions, have been limited because only a small fraction of their carbon surface area was usable for energy storage, it said.
The team overcame this by simply changing the way the material is heat-treated, producing what it calls multiscale reduced graphene oxide (M-rGO), which is synthesized from natural graphite, an abundant Australian resource, it added.
Through rapid thermal annealing, the researchers produced a curved graphene structure with efficient ion pathways, yielding both high energy and power density in one device, said the study published in Nature Communications.
"This discovery could allow us to build fast-charging supercapacitors that store enough energy to replace batteries in many applications, and deliver it far more quickly," said Monash Professor Mainak Majumder, the study's co-author.
Test devices achieved energy densities up to 99.5 watt-hours per liter and power densities as high as 69.2 kilowatts per liter, among the best reported for carbon-based supercapacitors, said the researchers. ■
