High-capacity electric double-layer capacitor with high-density-activated carbon fiber electrodes

Recently the authors have presented a method to prepare activated carbon fiber with high bulk density (HD-ACF) without using any binders. The possibility of using the HD-ACF as an electrode for electric double-layer capacitors (EDLCs) was examined in this paper. The capacitance of the EDLC a with the HD-ACF electrode increased with the increase of bulk density of the HD-ACE indicating that individual fibers are highly packed without losing their capacitance. The capacitance also increased in proportion to the size of the HD-ACF electrode. The initial discharge current of the EDLC showed little dependency on either the bulk density or the size of the HD-ACF electrode. These results clarified that the HD-ACF electrode is suitable for constructing a high-power EDLC. The initial discharge current was directly proportional to the conductivity of aqueous KCI used as the electrolyte, indicating that the resistance of the electrolyte is much higher than that of the HD-ACF electrode. This result showed that the efficiency of the HD-ACF was well above the efficiency of the electrolyte used in this study and that the improvement of the ionic conductivity of electrolyte is also necessary for developing a high-power EDLC. (C) 2000 The Electrochemical Society. S0013-4651(98)12-039-6. All rights reserved.