Professors Joong Hee Lee and Nam Hoon Kim (Advanced Materials Institute of BIN Convergence Technology) have developed an ultra-high efficiency solid supercapacitor manufacturing technology that can be used in future smart cars and have attracted attention from world academia.

This research, supported by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, was published in the latest online edition of Advanced Energy Materials (IF = 16.721), one of the world's top academic journals in the field of energy.

Supercapacitors are energy storage devices widely used in various electronic equipment such as electric cars and mobile terminals, mainly used to give high output in a short time. However, they have had a disadvantage in that the amount of energy that can be stored in the device is small and the operating voltage is low.

The technology newly introduced by the CBNU team dramatically compensates for the disadvantages of these conventional supercapacitors. In specific, zync (Z), cobalt (Co), and sulfur (S) were synthesized through the synthesis of metal hydroxide nanowires having a hierarchical porous structure on a three-dimensional nickel form, and a continuous sulfurization process. The team used the Z-Co-S composite as an electrode material.

This supercapacitor is designed to eliminate the existing difficulties when generating high output. Compared to conventional materials, the manufacturing method of new material is relatively simple and easy. Moreover, the supercapacitor can be easily transported and produced in various forms, as it is flexible, though in a solid state. Thus it can be applied to various electronic products.

In addition, the output performance is maintained at over 93% when used 10,000 times or more with a very long service life. High power can be generated even at high density of electricity, as well.

Therefore, this new discovery is expected to be widely used as electrode material for various next-generation energy storage and conversion devices, such as lithium ion secondary batteries, fuel cells, and solar cells.