Electrochemical activation of commercial graphite sheets for supercapacitive applications

Abstract

Carbon-based substrates are widely used as current collectors for high-performance energy storage materials in supercapacitors. However, these substrates exhibit negligible charge storage due to inferior electrochemical activity and small surface area. Herein, electrochemical activation is utilized to enhance the electrochemical activity of – inherently inactive – commercial graphite sheets for supercapacitive applications. The results reveal that the electrochemically activated graphite sheets render a 30-fold increase in areal capacitance, i.e., from 22 to 447 mF cm−2, which can be ascribed to the activation of graphite oxide functional groups on the surface. Also, the influence of electrochemical activation time on electrochemical performance is explored in detail, followed by the fabrication and characterization of symmetric supercapacitors based on the optimum process parameters in single-cell and tandem configurations, demonstrating the potential of electrochemically activated graphite sheets in practical applications.