Mid Sweden University

Graphene and other carbon-based materials are often used as electrodes in electrochemical double-layer supercapacitors (EDLCs), due to their ability to store electrical energy. Cellulose nanofibers (CNF) have been proven to be suitable as a dispersion agent and binder in graphite based electrodes for supercapacitor applications, especially due to their capability to improve the wet and dry strength of the electrode. At the same time the capacitance is maintained or even increased with addition of CNF. It is reasonable to believe that the addition of CNF manages to stabilize smaller graphite particles in the dispersion which results in larger internal surface area in the dry material.

When the amount of CNF is around 20 wt%, (in ratio to the total mass of active material), both scanning electron microscopy and XPS analysis showed that the surface is almost completely covered with the nano-cellulose. Even with this isolating layer of cellulose it is interesting to note that the capacitance is as high as 90 F/g, compared to around 50 F/g for the lowest CNF amount of 5 wt%. However, by applying voltage pulses during the galvanostatic cycling procedure for capacitance measurements, an initial transient behavior is observed during the first cycles. Therefore the capacitance is calculated after 4000 charge and discharge curves, when curves are completely stabilized. We found that the electrode structure changes significantly during this capacitance measurement and already after a short pulse of 10 s and 0.3 V the structural change is noticeable. After cycling for 24 hours, a completely new structure emerges where large fiber-like structures are developed with diameters around 20-30 µm. The galvanostatic cycling procedure has created fiber-like cellulose structures around 1000 times larger than the initial size of the nano-cellulose.

Structural properties of the electrode have often been related to the electronic properties in the supercapacitor. Our result shows that due to this change in the CNF structure, the electrode properties after galvanostatic cycling are indeed also of interest to study. This structural change might be critical to device performance and durability.