Physicochemical Modeling of Electrochemical Impedance in Solid-State Supercapacitors

Abstract

Solid-state supercapacitors (SSCs) consist of porous carbon electrodes and gel-polymer electrolytes and are used in novel energy storage applications. The current study aims to simulate the impedance of SSCs using a clearly defined equivalent circuit (EC) model with the ultimate goal of improving their performance. To this end, a conventional mathematical and a physicochemical model were adapted. The impedance was measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). An EC consisting of electrical elements was introduced for each modeling approach. The mathematical model was purely based on a best-fit method and utilized an EC with intuitive elements. In contrast, the physicochemical model was motivated by advanced theories and allowed meaningful associations with properties at the electrode, the electrolyte, and their interface. The physicochemical model showed a higher approximation ability (relative error of 3.7%) due to the interface impedance integration in a more complex circuit design. However, this model required more modeling and optimization effort. Moreover, the fitted parameters differed from the analytically calculated ones due to uncertainties in the SSC’s microscale configuration, which need further investigations. Nevertheless, the results show that the proposed physicochemical model is promising in simulating EIS data of SSCs with the additional advantage of utilizing well-reasoned property-based EC elements.