The idea of graphene supercapacitors may be novel and interesting, but what’s even more interesting is the method by which materials engineers at Monash University used to produce them. Using a method as simple and similar to traditional paper making, the engineers at Australian University have created graphene supercapacitors that have the same power density as the lead-acid battery in a car. All the better as these supercapacitors are 10 times more energy-dense than commercial devices.

The best part of graphene supercapacitors, just like any other supercapacitor, is that these can recharge and discharge almost instantly. Unlike a lead-acid battery whose energy density is really high, supercapacitors have very high power density and really low energy density. This is especially useful in situations when you need a short burst of energy. In case of graphene supercapacitors, graphene provides a very large surface area on electrodes (which is directly proportional to the amount of energy stored by a capacitor) that helps bridge the massive energy density gap between supercaps and batteries, while still retaining huge power density.

“We have created a macroscopic graphene material that is a step beyond what has been achieved previously. It is almost at the stage of moving from the lab to commercial development,” said Dan Li, the professorof Monash University.

The usual problem with this material is that it is difficult to mass-produce commercial-grade graphene. But the Monash engineers claim that they have solved this problem by implementing solution-based process that’s similar to that used in traditional paper making.

With this process, they are able to transform graphene into paper-like material that has a volumetric energy density of almost 60 watt-hours per liter (Wh/l), retains about 90% of its capacitance after 50,000 charge/discharge cycles, and it holds 90% of its charge after 300 hours.