Low-cost supercapacitor from industrial waste cotton & natural seawater electrolyte can help energy storage

Department of Science and Technology, GOI has developed a simple, low-cost, environment-friendly, and sustainable supercapacitor electrode. This is derived from industrial waste cotton which can be used to harvest energy.

For the first time, natural seawater has been explored as a cost-effective, scalable, and alternative aqueous electrolyte. This may replace the existing aqueous electrolytes for the economic fabrication of supercapacitors.

The supercapacitor is a next-generation energy storage device that has received extensive research attention owing to advantages such as high power density, long durability, and ultrafast charging characteristic. As compared to conventional capacitors and lithium-ion batteries (LIB).

In search of a cost-effective material for making affordable supercapacitor devices, scientists have converted industrial waste cotton (Trash) into highly porous carbon fibers (Treasure). By activation process and then utilized the porous carbon fibers to make high-performance supercapacitor electrodes.

The research team’s new, sustainable, and green supercapacitor device shows great potential for practical application. And perhaps most importantly, the integrated solar cell with seawater-based supercapacitor as low cost, eco-friendly, efficient, and self-powering device.

The successful demonstration of the device revealed that solar-powered supercapacitors can not only store the electrical energy but also overcome the drawbacks of the intermittent nature of the solar irradiation. Hence, the integrated solar cell with supercapacitors can be used as an energy harvester storage device due to their long cycle life and maintenance-free power supply.

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Update by Niraj Kumar

News source: PIB