Modelling the effects of charge redistribution during self-discharge of supercapacitors

Abstract

A recent study has shown that the process of self-discharge is determined by a number of parameters such as initial voltage, temperature, and charge duration. Depending on these parameters we observed a voltage decay of 5–15% within 48 h after charging. These observations hardly affect dynamic operations for supercapacitors, but have major implications for all static setups. A complex electrical model has been established to account for the redistribution effects of ions occurring in supercapacitors. Intense experimental studies suggest that these redistribution effects are in part responsible for the measured potential decays. Extended charging allows the ions to allocate themselves more homogeneously throughout the pores and therefore the voltage decay during the rest period following the charging is greatly reduced. The introduced model is capable of predicting the effects of charge duration, initial voltage, and temperature on the open circuit voltage decay.