Anatomy of the New Supercapacitor Industry Revealed by IDTechEx Research - Seite 2

Battery-supercapacitor hybrids (BSH) are almost always lithium-ion capacitors. They offer higher energy density often with effectively infinite cycle life and better charge retention than pure supercapacitors. Energy density several times that of pure EDLC supercapacitors. There is almost always confined to small units for electronics. IDTechEx measures that 24% of supercapacitor manufacturers now have a BSH range and of those 32% are made in China, where they are most successful commercially. China leads the world here, partly because they have so many large BSHs.

Several companies declare their supercapacitors to be "graphene" as a badge of honor. It can mean non-flammable, relatively non-toxic, no use of the volatile, toxic carcinogen acetonitrile, valuably improved series resistance, better voltage and energy density in a pure EDLC – all good things justifying a higher price.

Raghu Das adds, "IDTechEx measures that 8.75% of supercapacitor manufacturers now offer graphene versions, up from zero ten years ago. 43% of the manufacturers using graphene are in China so they are ahead in numbers, though certainly not in graphene supercapacitor research, much of which is aimed at the massive emerging market for replacing lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries with highest energy density of 100Wh/kg or more. In research, this is usually achieved by boosted pseudocapacitance though some perfect the technology of the newly commercial 100 Wh/kg lithium-ion supercapacitors. 33% of supercapacitor material research graphene-centric followed by carbon nanotubes then metal organic frameworks."

Large supercapacitors are more difficult to make, more profitable and represent the majority of the addressable market 2021-2041. Unlike small ones, they typically come with integral power electronics for optimal safe operation, microprocessors for intelligent response, often cooling systems. 47.5% of supercapacitor manufacturers now claim to make them, up from few in the past. However, many of those are barely in the business, their web entries being more of a wish list that reality. 34% of these are in China – no dominance though it is coming up fast in this respect. This is assisted by the fact that a disproportionate amount of the demand for large supercapacitors is in China with the Government requesting that all parts of trains, buses etc. be made in China. On the other hand, China is badly behind in researching supercapacitor bodywork, smart skin and other radical advances scoped in the IDTechEx Research report, "Supercapacitor Materials and Formats 2020-2040".