Performance of Novel Randomly Oriented High Graphene Carbon in Lithium Ion Capacitors

Abstract

The structure of carbon material comprising the anode is the key to the performance of a lithium ion capacitor. In addition to determining the capacity, the structure of the carbon material also determines the diffusion rate of the lithium ion into the anode which in turn controls power density which is vital in high rate applications. This paper covers details of systematic investigation of the performance of a structurally novel carbon, called Randomly Oriented High Graphene (ROHG) carbon, and graphite in a high rate application device, that is, lithium ion capacitor. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy shows that ROHG is less resistive and has faster lithium ion diffusion rates (393.7 × 10−3 S·s(1/2)) compared to graphite (338.1 × 10−3 S·s(1/2)). The impedance spectroscopy data is supported by the cell data showing that the ROHG carbon based device has energy density of 22.8 Wh/l with a power density of 4349.3 W/l, whereas baseline graphite based device has energy density of 5 Wh/l and power density of 4243.3 W/l. This data clearly shows advantage of the randomly oriented graphene platelet structure of ROHG in lithium ion capacitor performance.