Researchers from China and the United States develop a new supercapacitor with high power and fast charging speed

According to foreign media reports, researchers from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and two Chinese universities (Minjiang University and Guizhou Education College) said that they have developed a new supercapacitor based on manganese oxide that can combine the storage capacity of batteries with the high power and fast charging characteristics of other supercapacitors.

(Image credit: Pennsylvania State University)

"Manganese oxide is certainly a promising material, and by combining it with cobalt manganese oxide, we formed a heterostructure in which we were able to tune the interfacial properties," said Huanyu "Larry" Cheng, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics in the Materials Research Institute at Penn State.

The research team first conducted simulations to see how manganese oxide's properties change when combined with other materials. When manganese oxide is coupled to a semiconductor, it forms a conductive interface with low resistance for the transfer of electrons and ions. This is important because otherwise the material would charge very slowly.

“Exploring manganese oxide with cobalt manganese oxide as the positive electrode and a graphene oxide as the negative electrode can produce an asymmetric supercapacitor with high energy density and power density and good charge-discharge cycle stability,” said visiting scholar Cheng Zhang.

The research team compared the supercapacitor they developed to other supercapacitors and found that it had higher energy density and power. And the researchers believe that by increasing the lateral size and thickness of the material, this material may be used in electric vehicles . So far, the researchers have not tried to scale up the material. Next, they plan to adjust the interface so that the semiconductor and conductive layers can meet better performance. The researchers hope to be able to use this supercapacitor in flexible wearable electronic devices and sensors to power such devices, or directly use it as a self-powered sensor.