A New Empirical Equation for Estimating Specific Surface Area of Supercapacitor Carbon Electrode from X-Ray Diffraction

Abstract

Interest in research of supercapacitor has been in increasing trend because of high demand of supercapacitor application as energy storage device in both systems that require low and high power-energy usage. For supercapacitor using porous carbon electrodes, the energy storage mechanism involves the electrolyte ions in electrodes pores and electronic charges in electrodes to form electric double layers at the electrode-electrolyte interface without undergoes any chemical reaction. The specific surface area of porous electrodes, which affect the performance of supercapacitor, have been widely investigated by many researchers using the nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurement. However, despite its simplicity the X-ray diffraction method is rarely found being used to determine the specific surface area of porous electrodes. Therefore, in the present paper, we propose a new equation which expressed the specific surface area of electrodes as a function the electrode structural parameters obtained from the X-ray diffraction data, and duration of activation time employed during the electrode preparation. This equation is found to produce a satisfactory result and is expected to be beneficial for studying supercapacitor electrode materials.