The research leading to these results has received funding from Horizon2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation
Supercapacitors are an emerging family of energy storage devices complementary to batteries in many ways. A supercapacitor device can handle large current loads during charge-discharge events up to 1 million cycles. As a result a stack of supercapacitors has the ability to extend the service life of an associated battery bank connected in parallel by dealing with the extreme events in the (micro)grid that would otherwise compromise the battery’s life cycle. Implementation of green solutions such us the electric vehicles and Renewable Energy Sources in everyday life can strongly benefit from the combination of both storage technologies into a compact and affordable Hybrid Energy Storage System, HESS. To boost the penetration of supercapacitors, and hence HESS, cutting-edge nanoporous materials must be developed which enable the devices to shrink (dimensionally), pulling down the cost of the technology.
The CareSTOR project aims at the scale-up, techno-economic assessment and commercialization of unprecedented nanoporous carbons (NPCs) and the Supercapacitor cells and modules (stacks of cells) implementing this material (CareCAPs). NPCs outperform commercial competitors by as much as 40-50% in terms of energy storage per gram of material, adding some promising indicators in terms of volumetric storage as well.