Joule heat as the main heat source in high-power operation of supercapacitor modules, needs to be carefully considered in thermal management. The sufficient discussion on the temperature characteristics of supercapacitor modules, especially those containing auxiliary electronic components during operation is of importance. Here we reported the Joule heat effect on a supercapacitor module integrated on a circuit board in the charge and discharge cycles by an in situ Infrared imaging method. Temperature rise of total components including wires, circuit board, welding pint, resistor and capacitor cell could be simultaneously imaged with a sensitivity of 0.2–0.3 °C. Upon charge–discharge cycles from 5C-60C, Joule heat on these electronic components was discovered. The thermal transfered from the connected wires to the circuit board and finally to the cell, which significantly increased the temperature rise (from 9.3 °C to 19.6 °C at 60C) and temperature difference (9.6 °C at 60C) of different capacitors in modules. Further simulation results indicated that Joule heat on the circuit board was 2–3 times that of the capacitors in the module. Such additional heat flow without suitable cooling system would result an accelerated capacitance decay of the module. Therefore, a suitable module structure and thermal management strategy needed to be designed to minimize the Joule heat generation of such electronic components.
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