Electrochemical Energy Storage with Graphene-Enabled Materials

石墨烯是一层单原子厚的碳原子，排列在蜂窝状晶格中。自2004年实验分离和初步表征石墨烯以来，石墨烯的特殊物理性质引起了人们极大的兴趣，特别是其固有的高比表面积和独特的电子性质，如通过其高导电性表现出来的。在这种材料的众多应用中，超级电容器或电池在电化学储能方面的开发是最突出的应用之一。化石燃料价格上涨，以及对空气污染和人为气候变化的担忧，推动了国内乃至全球能源供应的去碳化。要实现这种去碳化，更多地利用“可再生”能源，需要新的储存和转换能源的方法。这一大背景，随着个人电子设备(移动电话、笔记本电脑)使用的广泛增加，推动了人们对电化学(基于电池和超级电容器)储能的极大兴趣和发展，这是本项目的技术动机。具有讽刺意味的是，这种(潜在的)去碳化能源储备高度依赖碳作为一种组成储存材料。超级电容器基于在高比表面积电极上形成的双电层内电能的存储，而某些类型的电池依赖于碳，无论是作为电极之一还是作为导电添加剂用于完成电极到电极的电路。然而，在将石墨烯引入这些能量存储装置的过程中有相当大的挑战需要解决：在最近关于石墨烯和能量存储的大量工作中，明显存在两个具体问题：(A)“石墨烯”通常质量差且尺寸可变，以及(B)通常只做了最小的努力来控制所得到的装置中的石墨烯的结构。因此，石墨烯在电池和超级电容器电极中作为固定化或导电性的复合材料或作为主电极材料仍有一段路要走。这项提议的目标是通过反复设计、制造和测试基于石墨烯的电池和超级电容器来弥补这些不足。

Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. The exceptional physical properties of graphene have attracted enormous interest since its experimental isolation and initial characterisation in 2004, notably its intrinsically high surface area and its unique electronic properties, as manifested by through its high conductivity. Amongst the myriad applications foreseen for this material, exploitation in electrochemical energy storage with supercapacitors or batteries ranks as one of the most prominent. De-carbonising the national, and indeed global, energy supply is a goal driven by rising fossil fuel prices and concerns over air pollution and anthropogenic climate change. For such de-carbonisation to make greater use of "renewable" energy sources requires new methods of storing and converting that energy. This general background, along with the widespread increase in usage of personal electronic apparatus (mobile phones, lap-tops) has driven an enormous renewal of interest and development of electrochemical (battery and supercapacitor based) energy storage, which is the technological motivation for this project. Ironically, such (potentially) de-carbonised energy stores are highly dependent on carbon as a constituent storage material. Supercapacitors are based on the storage of electrical energy within the electrical double-layer formed at high surface area electrodes, whereas certain types of battery are dependent on carbon, either as one of the electrodes or as a conducting additive used to complete the circuit to the electrodes.There are considerable challenges to be addressed en route to incorporating graphene into these energy storage devices however: two specific problems, apparent in much of the vast body of recent work on graphene and energy storage, are: (a) the "graphene" is generally of poor quality and variable dimensions, and (b) frequently only minimal effort is made to control the architecture of the graphene in the resultant device. Consequently, we are still some way off the routine incorporation of graphene within battery and supercapacitor electrodes, as either composites for immobilisation or conductivity, or as primary electrode materials. The goal of this proposal is to remedy these deficiencies by iteratively designing, manufacturing and testing graphene-based batteries and supercapacitors.