Carbon fiber electrodes enhanced with graphene oxide for supercapacitors

Nowadays, supercapacitors are very effective on a wide range of applications. Data backup, power fail alarms and generally embedded systems require high power density storage components with small dimensions. Graphene-based electrodes are very promising so as to construct thin film lightweight supercapacitors with high specific power. In this contribution, the development and electrochemical characterization of graphene-based electrodes with different fabrication parameters is conferred. In particular, both activated and un-activated carbon fiber was used as substrate and reduced graphene oxide as the active material. It was found that the activation of the carbon fiber offers superior performance in terms of gravimetric capacitance. Finally, Electric Double Layer Capacitors (EDLC's) with gravimetric capacitance of 2.12 F/g, energy density of 244.46 mWh/kg and power density of 54.6 W/kg after 600 charging-discarging cycles were fabricated.