Project Summary

Energy storage can manage intermittent supplies from renewable sources and help achieve a carbon-neutral future. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are one of the promising energy storage devices due to their high energy density. High battery materials costs will increase the initial investment in the energy storage system (ESS). Therefore, low-cost ESS is necessary to be developed from earth-abundant materials.

To tackle the challenges of energy storage materials, we propose a concept to develop low-cost sodium-ion hybrid supercapacitors (HSC) by using biomass-derived hard carbon and activated carbon as anode and cathode, respectively.

In order to achieve the primary objective, the following main research contents are covered:

• The carbonization process for developing carbon materials from local biomass

• Electrodes fabrication and device assembly

• The development of prototype Na-based HSC energy storage systems for household energy storage system

Project Goals

The project’s main goal will be to develop high-performance Na-ion HSCs based on the local abundant biomass materials to lower the cost over current technologies, complementing or even replacing the existing costly stationary energy storage system.

• Develop the approaches to derive the AC cathode material from biomass

• Produce Na-ions HSC made of biomass-derived carbon materials with an energy density above 50 Wh/kg

• Develop an Na-based HSC household energy storage system prototype with a capacity of 10 Wh, while being half the price of existing commercial energy storage systems

Project Period: 1st December 2023 - 30 November 2025