Carbon-Based Hybrid Composites as Advanced Electrodes for Supercapacitors

The energy demand is increasing day by day leading to the decrease in available non-renewable energy resources. To combat such a situation, a variety of energy storage and energy conversion devices are now being made available such as batteries, supercapacitors (SCs), conventional capacitors and fuel cells. Among these, the SCs are superior due to their remarkable properties of cyclic stability, safety, being environmental friendly, low cost, etc. However, the SC is defi cient in the amount of energy it can store compared to batteries and fuel cell. So far, numerous type of carbon-based electrode materials have been used for preparing SC like activated carbons, carbon aerogels, graphene, carbon nanotubes and so on due to their high surface area, cycle life, high electrical conductivity and high power density. However, the carbonbased electrode materials are lacking in ability to store high energy density. In order to improve the energy density without losing their power density, the carbon-based electrode material has been modifi ed to include composites with noble materials like metal oxides (MnO₂, Co3O4, NiO, etc.), metal hydroxides (Ni(OH)2, Co(OH)2, FeOOH, etc.) and conducting polymers (polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPy), polythiophene (PTh) and poly(3,4-ethyelenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), etc.). In this chapter, we present a detailed discussion on the advances made in the carbon-based electrodes for SC applications. Finally, we end the chapter with conclusion and prospects for future development of carbon-based electrode materials.