Proceedings of 2014 1st International Conference on Non Conventional Energy (ICONCE 2014)

A Novel Design of Super-Capacitor Used To

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Department of Information Technology,
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Department of Electrical Engineering
lIS College of Engineering
Kalyani, India
sumit.it81@gmail.com,
2
aritradey33@gmail.com,
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biswas,aniruddha@gmail.com,
4
mohantyashu _ 07@yahoo,com
Abstract-carcity of conventional energy makes world feel
the urge of alternatives that is non-conventional source of energy.
In this paper, we propose a technique to efciently store solar
energy by introducing Enhanced-Super-Capacitors (ESCs).
A new technology, the super capacitor, has emerged with the
potential to enable major advancement in energy storage. Super
capacitors are governed by the same fundamental equations as
conventional capacitors, but utilize higher surface area
electrodes and thinner dielectrics to achieve greater capacitances.
This allows for energy densities greater than those of
conventional capacitors and power densities greater than those of
batteries. As a result, super capacitors may become an attractive
power solution for an increasing number of applications. The
proposed model of the super capacitor would help in reducing
the cost of Solar cells and also increasing their efciency, thus
would be a step ahead in meeting the energy demands of the
ever-increasing population both in an efective and sustainable
manner.
1ndc Term-Enhanced-Super-Capacitors (ESCs), Photo
voltaic Cells (PV cells), Graphene, Conventional capacitors (CCs)
I. INTRODUCTION
Here we focus on solar energy storage technique by
replacing electrochemical batteries with ESC which might
eliminate the voltage balancing element; Figure-l depicts the
details.
In response to the changing global landscape, energy has
become a primary focus of the major world powers and
scientifc community,
=
5olar nergy
Fig. I. Solar power generation system
There has been great interest in developing and refning
more effcient energy storage devices, One such device, the
super capacitor, has matured signifcantly over the last decade
978-1-4799-3340-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE 61
and emerged with the potential to facilitate major advances in
energy storage. Super capacitors, also known as ultra
capacitors or electrochemical capacitors, utilize high surface
area electrode materials and thin electrolytic dielectrics to
achieve capacitances several orders of magnitude larger than
conventional capacitors [1-5]. In doing so, super capacitors are
able to attain greater energy densities while still maintaining
the characteristic high power density of conventional
capacitors.
This paper presents a brief overview of a new model of
super capacitor and how it is applicable to reduce the cost and
increase the effciency of Solar Energy production. Following
this introduction, in Section I, background is provided on the
fndamentals of conventional capacitors and of super
capacitors. Then, Section IV presents a new model and
working of the proposed-design of the ESC and its future
prospects.
II. METHODOLOGY
Conventional capacitors consist of two conducting
electrodes separated by an insulating dielectric material. When
a voltage is applied to a capacitor, opposite charges
accumulate on the surfaces of each electrode. The charges are
kept separate by the dielectric, thus producing an electric feld
that allows the capacitor to store energy. This is illustrated in
Figure-2.

De|ec
~~~~~~~~~

App|iee
Fig. 2. Schematic of a Conventional capacitor
Capacitance C is defned as the ratio of stored (positive)
charge
'
to the applied voltage '
C
'
(1)

ICONCE 2014
January 16 - 17, 2014, Kalyani, W, India.
Proceedings of 2014 1st International Conference on Non Conventional Energy (ICONCE 2014)
For a conventional capacitor, C is directly proportional to
the surface area :of each electrode and inversely proportional
to the distance 1 between the electrodes:

C' (2)
1
The product of the frst two factors on the right hand side
of the last equation is a constant of proportionality wherein L
is the dielectric constant (or permittivity of fee space) and 8 is
the dielectric constant of the insulating material between the
electrodes. The two primary attributes of a capacitor are its
energy density and power density. For either measure, the
density can be calculated as a quantity per unit mass or per
unit volume. The energy 1 stored in a capacitor is directly
proportional to its capacitance:
J 'ci
(3)
.
In general, the power P is the energy expended per unit
time. To determine P for a capacitor, though, one must
consider that capacitors are generally represented as a circuit
in series with an exteral "load" resistance R, as shown in
Figure-3.
Po
E
Cm Ct

C

%
`
. - .

. . .
:
Fig. 3. Schematic of Electrical-Double Layered Capacitor
The interal components of the capacitor (e.g., current
collectors, electrodes, and dielectric material) also contribute
to the resistance, which is measured in aggregate by a quantity
known as the equivalent series resistance (ESR). The voltage
during discharge is determined by these resistances. When
measured at matched impedance (R ESR), the maximum
power 1 @ for a capacitor [1], [2], [5] is given by:

J
(4)
This relationship shows how the ESR can limit the
maximum power of a capacitor.
Conventional capacitors have relatively high power
densities, but relatively low energy densities when compared
to electrochemical batteries and to fel cells. That is, a battery
can store more total energy than a capacitor, but it cannot
deliver it very quickly, which means its power density is low.
Capacitors, on the other hand, store relatively less energy per
unit mass or volume, but what electrical energy they do store
can be discharged rapidly to produce a lot of power, so their
power density is usually high.
Super-capacitors are governed by the same basic principles
as conventional capacitors. However, they incorporate
978-1-4799-3340-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE 62
electrodes with much higher surface areas A and much thinner
dielectrics that decrease the distance D between the electrodes.
Thus, fom Eqns. (2) and (3), this leads to an increase in both
capacitance and energy.
Furthermore, by maintaining the low ESR characteristic of
conventional capacitors, super-capacitors are also able to
achieve comparable power densities. Additionally, super
capacitors have several advantages over electrochemical
batteries and fuel cells, including higher power density,
shorter charging times, and longer cycle life and shelf life [1],
[2], [3].
The performance improvement for a super-capacitor is
shown in Figure-4; a graph termed as "Ragone plot" [3].
This type of graph presents the power densities of various
energy storage devices, measured along the vertical axis,
versus their energy densities, measured along the horizontal
axis. In Figure-4, it is seen that super-capacitors occupy a
region between conventional capacitors and batteries [3].
Despite greater capacitances than conventional capacitors,
super-capacitors have yet to match the energy densities of mid
to high-end batteries and fel cells. Thus, much of the
literature surveyed for this overview focuses on developing
improved types or classes of super-capacitors to make their
energy densities more comparable to those batteries .

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Fig. 4. Ragone comparison of energy-storage devices [3]
III. A BRIEF SUMMARIZATION ON SUPER-CAPACITORS
A battery is comprised of electrochemical cells. These
cells consist of two electrodes separated by some distance, the
space between them being flled with an electrolyte, which is a
compound that converts to ions when dissolved in certain
solvents, like battery acid. One of these electrodes allows
electrons to fow out of it while the other receives them. The
energy is stored in the compounds that make up the electrodes.
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Fig. 5. Super Capacitors [9]
ICONCE 2014
January 16 - 17, 2014, Kalyani, W, India.
Proceedings of 2014 1st International Conference on Non Conventional Energy (ICONCE 2014)
IV. THE PROPOSED MODEL OF THE NEW SUPER-CAPACITOR
ORESC
Instead of the conventional design of the capacitors that is
with parallel plates, we have given a new design of capacitor
shown in Figure 6. This design would help in maximizing the
accessible surface area available for each of the two electrodes
and if any electrolyte is introduced it will reduce the path over
which ions in the electrolyte would need to diffse. As a
result, the new super-capacitors have more charge capacity
and rate capability than their stacked counterparts.
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Fig. 6. Proposed Design of ESC
In the proposed design, the breadth ! of the plates used
in Figure-2 is kept constant while the length of the parallel
plates in Figure-l are increased to u, leading to an increase
in the area of the parallel plates from : to (:+u:). Thus
there is a change in equation (2) and fnally the equation
becomes
J!=OO
!
__J_

1
(4)
Where uC is the new capacitance and the other symbols
have their usual meanings.
Now integrating both sides of the above equation,
Or
f uC f cc

L=.66
1
(5)
Thus equation (5) shows how the capacitance of ESC is
just doubled by increasing the length of the plates by u .Even
the space needed for the ESC is lesser than that of a
conventional capacitor to produce the same capacitance. But
the breadth is not increased because it would take larger space
making the ESC inconvenient to work with.
The material that is used to make the ESC is graphene. In
practice, conductivity of a single-layer graphene sheet has
been measured up to 649 S/cm [7]. This value is similar to that
of graphite, but well below the conductivity of copper, which
is in the order of (10
5
) S/cm. The most important property of
graphene with respect to super-capacitors is, naturally, its high
theoretical specifc surface area of 2675 m
2
/g and the
corresponding theoretical specifc-capacitance of 550 Fig. For
instance, a calculation based on the spiral architecture of
graphene predicted a capacitance C -14, 000 F for a graphene
978-1-4799-3340-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE 63
electrode with thickness of 0.6 (lm and an overall device
length of 13.8 cm. [8]
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1C 1q' 10 1q

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Frequency {z}
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L
B

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c 1
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Freuency (H)
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Fig. 7. (a) Plot of impedance phase angle versus frequency. (b) Complex
plane plot of the impedance; inset: an expanded view in the region of
high frequencies. (c) Plot of specifc capacitance versus frequency using
a series-RC circuit model. (d) Plot of the real or imaginary part (C' or
C)of specifc capacitance versus frequency. [6]
Fig. S. SEM of graphene sheets [6]
V. CONCLUSION
So, it is seen that the graphene based ESC have a greater
capacitance than CCs and also a higher energy-storing
capacity. Even the discharging time (t3 to t4) of the ESC is
much slower than CCs whereas the time required (tl to t2) for
ESC to charge is lesser than that of CCs, as shown in the
probable graph in Figure-9. Thus the excessive energy
produced by the PV cells can be easily stored without much
wastage and later be used. ESC is eco-friendly as it contains
graphene [13] which is a carbon-based material and is thus
biodegradable, adding to the effciency of the whole system,
especially at night when energy production by the PV cells is
almost negligible or at times when there is cloud cover.
Moreover the ESC eliminates voltage balancing elements,
which makes it cheaper than the batteries.
ICONCE 2014
January 16 - 17, 2014, Kalyani, W, India.
Proceedings of 2014 1st International Conference on Non Conventional Energy (ICONCE 2014)

'
1

1
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l
II
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l ' l

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Fig. 9. Graph showing longer discharging time and lesser charging time
required for ESC
VI. FUTURE PROSPECT
The ESCs can be used as flters for both inverters as well
as transformers. The smaller size of ESCs and its compactness
holds great possibilities in the near future to replace batteries
both as energy-supplier and energy-storage device. It can also
be used as a power supply for automobiles and in a large-scale
domestic or industrial use. The low production cost of ESCs
also might meet the global energy demands in an effective
way. ESCs being a green device might make the world a safer
and a cleaner place to live in. The whole system performance
can be improved up to 30-40%, if we introduce automated Sun
tracking with auto-cleaned solar panel using MI -controller.
This system is under experimentation and further research
work can be pursued in its various dimensions.
978-1-4799-3340-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE 64
REFERENCES
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Fundaentals and Technological Applications". New York,
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[2] Burke, A., "Ultracapacitors: why, how, and where is the
technology." Joural of Power Sources, vol. 91(1): pp 37-50,
2000.
[3] Kotz, R. and M. Carlen, "Principles and applications of
electrochemical capacitors." Electrochimica Acta, vol. 45( 15-
16): pp 2483-2498, May 2000.
[4] A. S. Arico, P. Bruce, B. Scrosati, J.-M. Taascon, and W. va
Schalkwijk, "Nanostructured materials for advanced energy
conversion and storage devices," Nature Materials, vol. 4, no. 5,
pp. 366-377,2005.
[5] Chu, A. ad P. Braatz, "Compaison of commercial
supercapacitors and highpower lithium-ion batteries for power
assist applications in hybrid electric vehicles I. Initial
characterization." Joural of Power Sources, vol. 112(1): pp
236-246, 2002.
[6] John .R. Miller, "Graphene Double-Layer Capacitor with ac
Line-Filtering Perforance," Science, vol 329, pp 1637-1639,
2010.
[7] S. J. Wag, Y. Geng, Q. Zheng ad J.k. Kim, "Fabrication of
highly conducting and transparent graphene flms", Carbon, vol.
48, pp 1815-1823, 2010.
[8] `. Zhao, . Tian, M. Zhu, K. Tian, J.J. Wang, F. Kang and R.A.
Outlaw, "Carbon naosheets as the electrode material in
supercapacitors," Joual of Power Sources, vol. 194, pp 1208-
1212, 2009.
[9] A vailable:http://commons. wikimedia.orgiwikilFile:Diagram _of
_a_battery _with _ a olymer _separator.jpg and http://commons.
wikimedia.orgiwikilFile:Supercapacitor _ diagram.svg
ICONCE 2014
January 16 - 17, 2014, Kalyani, W, India.