Performance Enhancement of Carbon Nanomaterials for Supercapacitors

Car­bon nan­o­ma­ter­i­als such as car­bon nan­otubes, car­bon nan­ofibers, and graphene are exploited extens­ively due to their unique elec­tric­al, mech­an­ic­al, and thermal prop­er­ties and recently invest­ig­ated for energy stor­age applic­a­tion (super­ca­pa­cit­or) due to addi­tion­al high spe­cif­ic sur­face area and chem­ic­al inert­ness prop­er­ties. The super­ca­pa­cit­or is an energy stor­age device which, in addi­tion to long cycle life (one mil­lion), can give energy dens­ity high­er than par­al­lel plate capa­cit­or and power dens­ity high­er than bat­tery. In this paper, car­bon nan­o­ma­ter­i­als and their com­pos­ites are reviewed for pro­spect­ive use as elec­trodes for super­ca­pa­cit­or. Moreover, dif­fer­ent phys­ic­al and chem­ic­al treat­ments on these nan­o­ma­ter­i­als which can poten­tially enhance the capa­cit­ance are also reviewed.