ANGSTROM pursues the large-scale growth and structural optimization of multifunctional hybrid electrodes for advanced supercapacitor applications. These hybrid electrodes will be developed by combining two types of materials:
- a) Carbon-based materials with different morphologies and orientations, such as vertical graphene and vertical carbon nanotubes (Vertical Nanocarbons, VN), are increasing their relevance in energy storage owing to their large aspect ratio and open boundaries to allow easy penetration of electrolytes into the electrodes.
- b-c). Functionalizing carbon materials with porous active materials (PAM) to enhance the supercapacitor performance. Two types of PAM will be developed:
- b) Covalent organic frameworks (COF) are promising materials due to their large surface area and the high degree of redox-active sites.
- c) Conformal porous metal oxides ( c) with a high surface area and controllable porosity, which have unique thermal/mechanical stability and improved electrochemical properties, providing a high specific capacitance to the electrodes.
Considering the needs and demands, nanoengineering of carbons and porous active materials, as well as designing their functional hybrids using a green and economic plasma-enabled approach is the potential technique to overcome the challenges associated with the synthesis and performance. Critically, the technique proposed in ANGSTROM is one of the easy, fast, safe, and environmentally friendly techniques for synthesizing and processing high-quality nanostructures.