High energy and high power density supercapacitor with 3D Al foam-based thick graphene electrode: Fabrication and simulation

Abstract Thick electrode was promising to increase the energy density in device (battery or supercapacitor) scale, but always suffered the ion polarization upon high rate discharge. We reported the use of 3D Al foam (current collector) to host graphene (with high surface area but very low packing density) to fabricate 450 μm thick electrode with mass loading of 10–15 mg cm−2. The space confinement effect of Al wires on graphene at any regions offered sufficient ordered diffusion channel of liquids, alleviating the ion polarization significantly, compared to the same thick graphene sheet pasted on 2D Al foil by simulation with COMSOL software. The 100 F pouch supercapacitor with ionic liquids at 4 V exhibited low contact resistance, high specific capacitance in a wide range of current densities, and simultaneously the volumetric energy density of 18 Wh L−1 and the power density of 5 kW kg−1, far better than those of current commercial device.