Activation/Electrochemical Characterization of Meso-porous Carbons for Capacitors

The goal of these experiments is to verifY technology and begin optimization of a new catalytic carbon activation process together with alternative carbon particle morphologies. Although other applications have been envisioned in filed patent applications, the initial materials specified below are intended for ultracapacitor electrodes using aprotic electrolytes. There are two levels of experiment possible concerning the basic ideas. One uses conventional particulates, or conventionally spun carbon fibers, or their precursors. It focuses on engineered catalytic activation and engineered material morphology. Resultant electrodes should substantially exceed the capacitance of all known carbon materials except selectively spaced vertically aligned carbon nanotubes of suitable chirality, and should do so at reasonable cost. The second level of experiment uses finer particulates or convoluted or espun carbon fibers to measure the additional degree of specific capacitance improvement from greater intrinsic relative exterior. Since espinning at finer fiber diameters with good precursor carbon materials is not yet in volume production, and since finer particulates may present other issues such as increased grain boundary resistance or greater binder requirements, the initial experiments focuses only on conventional particulate and tiber such as could be utilized directly in existing electrode manufacturing processes.