Ampere-hour-scale soft-package potassium-ion hybrid capacitors enabling 6-minute fast-charging

Huanxin Li; Yi Gong; Haihui Zhou; Jing Li; Kai Yang; Boyang Mao; Jincan Zhang; Yan Shi; Jinhai Deng; Mingxuan Mao; Zhongyuan Huang; Shuqiang Jiao; Yafei Kuang; Yunlong Zhao; Shenglian Luo

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-42108-6

Ampere-hour-scale soft-package potassium-ion hybrid capacitors enabling 6-minute fast-charging

Nat Commun. 2023 Oct 12;14(1):6407. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-42108-6.

Authors

Huanxin Li^#^{1

2

3

4}, Yi Gong^#^{5

6}, Haihui Zhou⁷, Jing Li⁸, Kai Yang⁶, Boyang Mao², Jincan Zhang², Yan Shi⁹, Jinhai Deng¹⁰, Mingxuan Mao¹¹, Zhongyuan Huang¹, Shuqiang Jiao¹², Yafei Kuang¹, Yunlong Zhao¹³, Shenglian Luo¹⁴

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, 410082, China.
² Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, 9 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0FA, UK.
³ Department of Chemistry, Physical & Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QZ, UK.
⁴ Electrochemical Innovation Lab, Department of Chemical Engineering, University College London, London, WC1E 7JE, UK.
⁵ Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2BX, UK.
⁶ Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK.
⁷ State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, 410082, China. haihuizh@hnu.edu.cn.
⁸ Department of Chemical & Process Engineering, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK.
⁹ College of Materials and Metallurgy, Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550025, China.
¹⁰ King's College London, London, SE1 1UL, UK.
¹¹ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
¹² State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China. sjiao@ustb.edu.cn.
¹³ Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2BX, UK. yunlong.zhao@imperial.ac.uk.
¹⁴ State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, 410082, China. sllou@hnu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Extreme fast charging of Ampere-hour (Ah)-scale electrochemical energy storage devices targeting charging times of less than 10 minutes are desired to increase widespread adoption. However, this metric is difficult to achieve in conventional Li-ion batteries due to their inherent reaction mechanism and safety hazards at high current densities. In this work, we report 1 Ah soft-package potassium-ion hybrid supercapacitors (PIHCs), which combine the merits of high-energy density of battery-type negative electrodes and high-power density of capacitor-type positive electrodes. The PIHC consists of a defect-rich, high specific surface area N-doped carbon nanotube-based positive electrode, MnO quantum dots inlaid spacing-expanded carbon nanotube-based negative electrode, carbonate-based non-aqueous electrolyte, and a binder- and current collector-free cell design. Through the optimization of the cell configuration, electrodes, and electrolyte, the full cells (1 Ah) exhibit a cell voltage up to 4.8 V, high full-cell level specific energy of 140 Wh kg^-1 (based on the whole mass of device) with a full charge of 6 minutes. An 88% capacity retention after 200 cycles at 10 C (10 A) and a voltage retention of 99% at 25 ± 1 °C are also demonstrated.