Nanomaterial-functionalised carbons for next-generation supercapacitor electrodes

为了有效地利用间歇性可持续能源，并减少当前发电系统的产能过剩，以满足“峰值需求”，我们必须开发高效的储能技术。超级电容器将在未来的灵活能源网（以及汽车和个人电子产品）中发挥关键作用，因为它们能够快速充电/放电（实现高功率输出），并且寿命可能很长。然而，目前的技术受到低能量密度（~ 5 W h kg-1）的影响，这意味着如果需要高能量容量（例如在汽车/公共汽车中），则必须构造非常大的装置。这种缺陷部分是由于构成电极的材料，通常是活性或多孔碳，其具有低导电性、低堆积密度和差的颗粒间互连性。我将在本奖学金中开发的材料将为这些问题提供优雅而实用的解决方案。我将第一次用纳米材料对块状碳（例如活性碳）的表面进行可扩展的纳米纹理化，提高它们的导电性和连通性，并有效地增加它们的表面积和引入高活性的赝电容材料。这将大大提高这些材料的储能性能。我将通过利用含有带电纳米材料的液体来实现这一目标，这些纳米材料可以使用高度可扩展的低成本方法（如电沉积）在碳表面上进行操作。重要的是，沉积策略将消除有害的纳米材料重新堆叠和团聚，从而利用个性化纳米材料的有益特性。这项跨学科的工作将汇集在伦敦大学学院（UCL）的三个部门。它将利用该部广泛的合成和分析设施。化学，开创性的设施，为创造带电纳米材料解决方案的部门。物理学和天文学以及电化学创新实验室的世界一流的电化学制造和测试设备。这种组合使UCL成为这项工作的理想地点。这些设施将允许带电纳米材料的电化学和化学沉积并行开发，并优化纳米结构，包括碳纳米管，石墨烯和二硫化钼。通过可控地沉积这些材料，我将能够控制表面形态和表面的氧化还原活性，从而创造出可以调节的材料。这些将在实验室规模的超级电容器设备中进行广泛测试，最成功的将与我的行业合作伙伴一起生产工业演示器。通过仔细的结构调查的混合材料，他们生产的电极，使用先进的显微镜，相衬X射线断层扫描和小角度X射线散射技术，我将阐明他们的结构性能关系。

To effectively utilise intermittent sustainable energy sources, and to reduce the current over-capacity in energy generation systems, necessary to meet 'peak demand', we must develop efficient energy storage technologies. Supercapacitors will play a key role in the future flexible energy grid (as well as in automotive and personal electronics), due to their ability to quickly charge/discharge (enabling high power output) and their potentially lengthy lifespans. However, current technologies suffer from low energy densities (~ 5 W h kg-1), meaning very large devices must be constructed if high energy capacity is required (e.g. in cars/busses). This deficiency is partially due to the materials from which the electrodes are constructed, commonly activated or porous carbons, which have low conductivity, low packing density, and poor inter-particle interconnectivity. The materials I will develop in this Fellowship will provide elegant and practical solutions to these problems. I will, for the first time, scalably nano-texture the surfaces of bulk carbons (e.g. activated carbons) with nanomaterials, improving their conductivity and connectivity, as well as efficiently increasing their surface area and introducing highly active pseudocapacitive materials. This will dramatically improve the energy storage performance of these materials. I will achieve this through the utilisation of liquids containing charged nanomaterials that can be manipulated onto the carbon surfaces using highly scalable, low-cost methods such as electrodeposition. Importantly, the deposition strategies will negate detrimental nanomaterial re-stacking and agglomeration, thus harnessing the beneficial properties of individualised nanomaterials. This cross-disciplinary work will bring together three departments at University College London (UCL). It will exploit the wide-ranging synthetic and analytical facilities in Dept. of Chemistry, the pioneering facilities for the creation of charged nanomaterial solutions in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy and the world-class electrochemical manufacture and testing equipment in the Electrochemical Innovation Lab. This combination makes UCL the ideal location for this work. These facilities will allow both electrochemical- and chemical-deposition of charged nanomaterials to be developed in parallel and optimised for nano-structures including carbon nanotubes, graphene and MoS2. By controllably depositing these materials I will be able to control the surface morphology and redox-activity of surfaces, and therefore create materials which can be tuned. These will be extensively tested in lab-scale supercapacitor devices and the most successful will be scaled to produce an industrial demonstrator with my industry partner. Through careful structural investigation of the hybrid-materials, and the electrodes they produce, using advanced microscopy, phase-contrast X-ray tomography and small-angle X-ray scattering techniques, I will elucidate their structure-performance relationships.