Production of a hybrid capacitive storage device via hydrogen gas and carbon electrodes coupling

Zhengxin Zhu; Zaichun Liu; Yichen Yin; Yuan Yuan; Yahan Meng; Taoli Jiang; Qia Peng; Weiping Wang; Wei Chen

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-30450-0

Production of a hybrid capacitive storage device via hydrogen gas and carbon electrodes coupling

Nat Commun. 2022 May 19;13(1):2805. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30450-0.

Authors

Zhengxin Zhu^#¹, Zaichun Liu^#¹, Yichen Yin¹, Yuan Yuan¹, Yahan Meng¹, Taoli Jiang¹, Qia Peng¹, Weiping Wang¹, Wei Chen²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China.
² Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China. weichen1@ustc.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Conventional electric double-layer capacitors are energy storage devices with a high specific power and extended cycle life. However, the low energy content of this class of devices acts as a stumbling block to widespread adoption in the energy storage field. To circumvent the low-energy drawback of electric double-layer capacitors, here we report the assembly and testing of a hybrid device called electrocatalytic hydrogen gas capacitor containing a hydrogen gas negative electrode and a carbon-based positive electrode. This device operates using pH-universal aqueous electrolyte solutions (i.e., from 0 to 14) in a wide temperature range (i.e., from - 70 °C to 60 °C). In particular, we report specific energy and power of 45 Wh kg^-1 and 458 W kg^-1 (both values based on the electrodes' active materials mass), respectively, at 1 A g^-1 and 25 °C with 9 M H₃PO₄ electrolyte solution. The device also enables capacitance retention of 85% (final capacitance of about 114 F g^-1) after 100,000 cycles at 10 A g^-1 and 25 °C with 1 M phosphate buffer electrolyte solution.