Graphene Technologies and Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon Materials in Energy

Carbon materials touch every aspect of our daily life in some way. Regarding todays environmental challenges carbon may be the key elemental component, usually blended into notations such as “carbon cycle” or “carbon footprint”. Interestingly, not being used as “fossil fuel”, carbon materials also considerably contribute to the field of sustainable energy. They are central in most electrochemical energy-related applications, i.e. they also help to generate, store, transport, and save energy. Nanostructured carbon is already used in fuel cells, conventional batteries and super capacitors. Electric double layer capacitors (EDLC, also called super capacitors) are energy storage devices based on the electrical adsorption of ions at the electrode/electrolyte interface (non-Faradaic process). Porous carbons are being used widely as electrode materials for super capacitors because of their high specific surface area and relatively good electrical conductivity.