Electrochemical Evaluation of Choline Bromide-Based Electrolyte for Hybrid Supercapacitors

Abstract

Choline bromide (ChBr) has been less explored as an electrolyte material. This work demonstrates the promising potential of ChBr as a novel aqueous electrolyte for hybrid supercapacitors. At its optimized concentration of 3.5 M, ChBr solution exhibits a maximum conductivity of 79.56 mS cm−1 at room temperature, along with a viscosity of 3.15 mPas and a density of 1.14 g cm−3. A reduction in water activity of the optimized ChBr electrolyte concentration extends the electrochemical stability window (ESW), enabling operation up to 1.9 V for two-electrode cells. When the current densities increase from 0.5 to 5 A g−1, the hybrid supercapacitor based on ChBr electrolyte with the optimized mass ratio of electrodes composed of commercial microporous carbon (Maxsorb) demonstrates impressive specific energy and capacitance retention from 41 to 36 Wh kg−1 and from 330 to 300 F g−1 (per mass of one electrode), respectively. The experimental results obtained from this work demonstrate possibilities for further development and applications of ChBr-based hybrid systems in energy storage devices.