Study of the performance of supercapacitors formed by ionic liquids containing cations counterparts

• Grant number: 20/14755-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2021
• End date: April 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Physical-Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Leonardo José Amaral de Siqueira
• Grantee: Matheus Fatorelli Machado
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Ambientais, Químicas e Farmacêuticas (ICAQF). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Diadema. Diadema , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Performance in terms of energy storage and power of supercapacitors built with ionic liquids containing trialkyl sulfonium cations is intriguing because the supercapacitor that contains the ionic liquid with higher ionic conductivity is the one that has the lowest power. In addition, it has the greater capacitance (Rennie et al. J. Phys. Chem. C 2015, 119, 23865). Our group studied this class of supercapacitors by molecular dynamics simulations with a fixed charge model and plane graphite electrodes, which did not show significant differences between supercapacitors containing ionic liquids with trialkyl-sulfonium cations (Sampaio et al. J. Mol. Liq. 2019, 296, 112065). In this In the project, we will study supercapacitors built with porous electrodes and these ionic liquids applying voltage with the constant potential model, which allows the study of energy storage capacity and charging time. Our goal is to unveil the performance of these devices, calculating, from atomistic simulations by the molecular dynamics method, the density of stored energy and charging and discharging times of the supercapacitors and compare them with experimental results.