A gum waste produced by trees in India could transform the sustainability and performance of next-generation supercapacitors, researchers from Scotland, South Korea and India have found.
Supercapacitors, used widely in electronics and electric vehicles, offer fast charging and discharging but degrade over time due to corrosive acidic electrolytes.
This degradation leads to e-waste and reduced lifespan.
The international team discovered that combining gum kondagogu — a waste by-product from the Cochlospermum gossypium tree — with sodium alginate creates a biodegradable biopolymer, dubbed ‘KS’.
When added to the electrolyte, KS forms a protective layer over the carbon electrodes, reducing wear while preserving energy transfer.
In laboratory tests, the modified supercapacitor retained 93% of its energy capacity after 30,000 charge cycles.
A standard supercapacitor, by contrast, dropped to just 58%.
Dr Jun Young Cheong, from the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering, said: “The gums we’ve used in this study don’t have many practical uses and are actually a bit of a headache for the Indian government to dispose of. With this research, we’ve found a way of making something genuinely impactful from this gum, creating a biodegradable, recyclable biopolymer which enables remarkable performance and could extend the useful life of supercapacitors dramatically.”
Dr Cheong estimates that with just one cycle a day, the enhanced device could last over 80 years without significant performance loss.
This research builds on his previous work using biowaste in lithium-ion batteries and could be key to lowering the environmental impact of energy storage devices.
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