Sandpit: SUPERCAPACITORS FOR AN EFFECTIVE AND SUSTAINABLE POWER SYSTEM

有效且可持续的电力系统是重要的，并且在许多情况下对于当今世界的许多工人和个人来说是必不可少的，以向个人电子和通信设备供电，以维持移动的操作以及移动的工人和商人的工作。电动和混合动力运输车辆基于高效和可持续的动力系统。在大多数情况下，电池用于能量存储，尽管电池有相当大的进步和发展，但即使是最好的锂离子电池对于中等和高功率要求仍然很重，体积庞大和笨重。因此，超级电容器被提出作为有效和可持续的电力系统的基本元件，其中它们可以提供峰值负载，延长电池寿命，容易地提供可持续的高电流和高功率脉冲。此外，燃料电池和可再生能源等替代电源大多具有间歇性，因此，电力系统中肯定需要超级电容器来平衡和平滑负载。未来对这些替代能源的能源收集的期望涵盖了大量的用户系统，包括个人使用的设备和设备，运输车辆，住宅区，工作区，甚至电网。超级电容器通常是高功率密度装置，但它们具有低能量密度。目前性能最高的超级电容器基于纳米材料，因为增加的电极表面积可以提高电容。该项目的主要目标是开发具有更高能量密度的新型超级电容器（同时保持非常高的功率密度水平）;为了实现这一点，提出了开发新的制造技术以增加有效表面积并将电极和电解质视为一个系统而不是优化各个部件的性能，以便开发出最好的纳米材料，使其在协同作用下发挥最佳性能，并研究混合系统。虽然该项目的主要任务是开发高性能超级电容器，但也有一个工作计划，用于设计，组装和测试有效和可持续的电力系统，包括最好的超级电容器，间歇性能源，如光伏电源，以及在模拟峰值负载曲线下运行的中等功耗设备。本部分的目的是展示包括超级电容器在内的电力系统的有效性及其对用户可持续性的贡献。

An effective and sustainable power system is important and in many cases essential for many workers and individuals in today's world to power personal electronic and communication devices, to sustain mobile operations and the work of the mobile worker and businessman. Electric and hybrid transport vehicles are based on an effective and sustainable power system. In the majority of these cases, batteries are used for energy storage and, despite the considerable progress and developments in batteries, even the best Li-ion batteries are still heavy, bulky and cumbersome for medium and high power requirements. As a result, supercapacitors are proposed as an essential element of an effective and sustainable power system in which they may provide the peak load, extend battery life, easily provide sustainable high current and high power pulses. Furthermore, alternative power sources such as fuel cells and renewable energy sources are mostly of intermittent nature, hence, a supercapacitor is definitely needed for load levelling and smoothing in the power system. Future expectations of energy harvesting from such alternative sources cover a huge range of user systems, including devices and equipment used by individual people, transport vehicles, residence quarters, working quarters, even the electricity grid. Supercapacitors are generally high power density devices but they suffer from low energy densities. The highest performance supercapacitors are currently based on nanomaterials, given that increased electrode surface area improves the capacitance. The main forcus in this project is to develop novel supercapacitors with improved energy density (while maintaining very high levels of power density); in order to achieve this, it is proposed to develop novel fabrication techniques to increase the effective surface area and to consider the electrodes and electrolyte as a system rather than optimising the performance of the individual components, so that the best nanomaterials are developed that function at optimum performance in synergy, and also to investigate hybrid systems. Whereas the major task in this project will be the development of a high performance supercapacitor, there is also a workprogramme for a demonstrator of an effective and sustainable power system to be designed, assembled and tested, including the best supercapacitor, an intermittent energy source, such as a photovoltaic source, and a medium power consumption device operating at a simulated peak load profile. The aim of this part will be to demonstrate the effectiveness of the power system including the supercapacitor and its contribution to user's sustainability.