Abstract
Supercapacitors offer a wide range of applications for space flight. The aim of this activity was to pursue life tests on commercial off the shelf (COTS) supercapacitors from different manufacturers, to evaluate their performance after long term vacuum exposure and to investigate balancing designs for the use of these cells in banks of supercapacitors (BOSC). This study enabled to select the most suitable part for space applications and to confirm the design rules at unit level and deratings at component level, which need to be applied. All those complementary results have paved the way to the on-going activities related to Nesscap 10F qualification and associated modular Bank Of Supercapacitors development for space applications.
Highlights
Supercapacitors called electrochemical double layer capacitors are energy storage devices that store electric energy in the double layer between a high surface area electrode and an electrolyte [1]
This paper is a continuation of the work in terms of life test duration and an extension to the balancing system, which is of major importance for the lifetime of supercapacitor banks
It has to be noted that the DC Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) at the beginning of life (BOL) of the Maxwell cell is about twice the value of the Nesscap cell (55 m vs 27 m)
Summary
Supercapacitors called electrochemical double layer capacitors are energy storage devices that store electric energy in the double layer between a high surface area electrode and an electrolyte [1]. With exception of parasitic electrochemical reactions, the storage of energy in supercapacitors is a purely physical phenomenon [2]. The supercapacitor cells must be capable of withstanding the harsh environments present for space applications. The advantage of supercapacitors is their extremely high power density of several tens of kW/kg and their capability of operating at temperatures down to -40°C. Due to the purely physical operation principle supercapacitors are capable of performing a large amount of cycling. This paper is a continuation of the work in terms of life test duration and an extension to the balancing system, which is of major importance for the lifetime of supercapacitor banks. Not included are the modelling of supercapacitor cells electric performance and ageing, which are reported in [9]
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