Electrode Materials for Advanced Photo-Supercapacitors

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid growth of the population all over the world has caused an increase in global energy consumption, and the utilization of fossil fuels has led to changes in the Earth’s climate due to increased emissions of greenhouse gases. Thus, we are forced to produce systems that are designed for energy conversion and storage on a larger scale. Nowadays, batteries and supercapacitors are the essential energy storage devices that can be used in breakthrough electronic appliances. On the other hand, an alternative for depleting fossil fuels is renewable energy sources (RES). By definition, they are renewable sources—that means for us, inexhaustible. Their impact on environmental pollution is extremely reduced. Almost everything in this world ultimately derives its energy from the sun. Instead of obtaining the sun’s energy from indirect sources, researchers and worldwide organizations are looking to directly tap this unlimited source of energy. This has encouraged the development of photovoltaic (PV) devices, as prime energy production devices using the sun’s energy; however, they require separate systems for efficient storage of excess energy. The idea of coupling photoactive materials and supercapacitors as a complete energy conversion and storage device arose because the solar energy converted by photoactive materials can be efficiently transferred and stored as electrical energy by adopting supercapacitor electrodes in one device. The conversion and storage efficiency of a photo-supercapacitor is dependent on its photoactive material as well as the electrode material for the supercapacitor. A photo-supercapacitor (PSC) is a hybrid device, in which, during charging, photogenerated charge is transferred to the counter electrode and, in contrast to the photoelectrochemical cell, is not utilized for chemical reaction but is stored on the supercapacitor electrode. This device, when not exposed to sunlight, may release its accumulated energy while discharging the supercapacitor.

Thus, original research articles, review articles, and significant preliminary communications are invited, with a particular interest in articles describing photo-supercapacitors as a whole device or supercapacitors and photoactive electrode materials separately.

Dr. Mariusz Szkoda
Dr. Konrad Trzciński
Guest Editors

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• photo-supercapacitors
• supercapacitors
• energy conversion and storage
• photoactive electrode materials