Enhancing Electrochemistry Education with Supercapacitor Charging and Discharging Computational Experiments

Abstract

Ion transport, involving the diffusion and migration of ions within the electrolyte, stands as a fundamental concept in electrochemistry and serves as the driving force for electrochemical reactions. Electric double layers are critical in the fields of electrochemical energy storage and chemical conversion, constituting a central focus of fundamental research across the disciplines of chemistry, physics, and various engineering disciplines. This article introduces an innovative approach to educating students about electrochemistry by employing a computational experiment that focuses on the dynamics of supercapacitors. It introduces a stack electrode model designed to guide students through the concepts of ion transport and electric double layers, utilizing the Poisson–Nernst–Planck equations and equivalent circuits. The model can provide local electric potentials, charge densities, and current responses under different conditions. Notably, this methodology is beneficial for understanding the relaxation times and integral capacitances of porous electrodes. The article enriches traditional teaching methods with step-by-step computational experiments, thereby deepening our understanding of electrochemical principles. Numerical simulations present abstract equations in the form of images, improving teaching efficiency and stimulating students’ interest in learning. This computational experiment is proposed as part of an advanced undergraduate-graduate level course in electrochemistry.