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Electrical energy storage (EES) is one of the most critical areas of technological research around the world. Storing and efficiently using electricity generated by intermittent sources and the transition of our transportation fleet to electric drive depend fundamentally on the development of EES systems with high energy and power densities. Supercapacitors are promising devices for highly efficient energy storage and power management, yet they still suffer from moderate energy densities compared to batteries. To establish a detailed understanding of the science and technology of carbon/carbon supercapacitors, this review discusses the basic principles of the electrical double-layer (EDL), especially regarding the correlation between ion size/ion solvation and the pore size of porous carbon electrodes. We summarize the key aspects of various carbon materials synthesized for use in supercapacitors. With the objective of improving the energy density, the last two sections are dedicated to strategies to increase the capacitance by either introducing pseudocapacitive materials or by using novel electrolytes that allow to increasing the cell voltage. In particular, advances in ionic liquids, but also in the field of organic electrolytes, are discussed and electrode mass balancing is expanded because of its importance to create higher performance asymmetric electrochemical capacitors.

The most commonly used electrode materials for electrochemical capacitors are activated carbons, because they are commercially available and cheap, and they can be produced with large specific surface area. However, only the electrochemically available surface area is useful for charging the electrical double layer (EDL). The EDL formation is especially efficient in carbon pores of size below 1 nm because of the lack of space charge and a good attraction of ions along the pore walls. The pore size should ideally match the size of the ions. However, for good dynamic charge propagation, some small mesopores are useful. An asymmetric configuration, where the positive and negative electrodes are constructed from different materials, e.g., activated carbon, transition metal oxide or conducting polymer, is of great interest because of an important extension of the operating voltage. In such a case, the energy as well as power is greatly increased. It appears that nanotubes are a perfect conducting additive and/or support for materials with pseudocapacitance properties, e.g. MnO(2), conducting polymers. Substitutional heteroatoms in the carbon network (nitrogen, oxygen) are a promising way to enhance the capacitance. Carbons obtained by one-step pyrolysis of organic precursors rich in heteroatoms (nitrogen and/or oxygen) are very interesting, because they are denser than activated carbons. The application of a novel type of electrolyte with a broad voltage window (ionic liquids) is considered, but the stability of this new generation of electrolyte during long term cycling of capacitors is not yet confirmed.

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