Electrochemical Study of Ceramic (BaTiO3 based)/ Polymer Composite electrodes for Supercapacitor applications

Electrochemical Supercapacitors are high energy storage devices compared to the conventional capacitors. Supercapacitors work on the simple phenomena of electrostatics and electrochemistry helping to harvest energy in a greener way. This research explores supercapacitive properties of the BaTiO3 system as it already is a good dielectric material. Being a non – conductive system, calcination treatments were done on Nd doped BaTiO3 to make it conductive enough to be a supercapacitive electrode. The effect of calcination and graphite inclusion into the BaTiO3 system (CBTG) as a composite was studied. The polymer – ceramic three way composite system was studied at varying polymer and the ceramic mixture composition. A novel sandwich type electrochemical cell setup was developed to study the supercapacitor cell. The Nd doped BaTiO3 material was synthesized by ball milling and spray drying. The composites were prepared by partial solution mixing. A novel technique called partial solution mixing method, which incorporates physical milling in a selected liquid medium, was successfully developed to prepare the composite electrode specimens. The performance of the two polymers (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and polyaniline) was studied in the BaTiO3 system, exploiting respective non conductive and conductive nature of the polymers. The supercapcitor electrode composites were characterized through cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and chronopotentimetry, for performance, and also through XRD, SEM and EDS for structure – property correlations. The effect of electrolyte, separator membrane and cycle life were also studied for the composite systems. Energy and power density calculations were used to assess the practical applications of the system.

Name thesis:degree_name

MS

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Engineering and Applied Science: Materials Science

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Cincinnati

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Megharaj, Prabhu

Contributors dc:contributor

• Buchanan, Relva

• Materials Science
• Supercapacitor
• Barium Titanate
• Partial Solution Mixing
• Pseudocapacitance
• Cyclic Voltammetry

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1353156033

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:ucin1353156033