New flexible supercapacitor can be recharged in seconds

These supercapacitors will be able to withstand more than 30,000 cycles.

Supercapacitors hold a lot of promise to give people fast-charging power sources in the future, but they still largely remain a dream that has had trouble being implemented in the market. Researchers are still working on it, though, and the latest breakthrough is coming out of the University of Central Florida's NanoScience Technology Center. Researchers there developed a new process of making flexible supercapacitors that store more energy than in the past and can recharge more than 30,000 times without any degradation. Degradation is a big problem with Li-ion batteries, as well, as users often notice lower capacity after 500 to 1,000 full recharge cycles.

Past work on supercapacitors has focused on using graphene with 2D materials. The UCF researchers instead employed wires that were a nanometer-thick and coated with shells of 2D materials. These wires are able to more quickly transfer electrons, enabling fast charging and discharging.

If the technology replaces batteries, researchers say it would enable users to charge a smartphone within a few seconds and not recharge it for a week. The promise of a supercapacitor-filled future has a lot of people eager for what may come, but technology still has limitations. The biggest hindrance is that supercapacitors that hold as much energy as Li-ion batteries are much larger. This means they are not yet ideal for mobile electronics. While this latest development remains a "proof-of-concept demonstration," it is still a step in the right direction.