Investigation of Potassium Sulphate as a Solid State Electrolyte

In recent years a considerable shift has been observed from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy for commercial and industrial energy needs owing to the harmful environmental impacts of fossil fuels. Due to this shift the demand for batteries and allied technologies have increased drastically. Due to this rise in electrical energy usage, need of sustainable electrical energy storage devices have increased. One of the more popular choices has been use of non-conventional batteries over traditional Lithium-Ion batteries. Interestingly, supercapacitor as energy storage devices have gained a lot of attraction. Their ability to charge quickly and hold high amount of charge have given them an edge over batteries and capacitors. Consequently, supercapacitors have been employed for short term energy storage in commercial electric buses and cars all over the world. Supercapacitors have also recently been deemed as smart systems on account of properties like photo-detection, electrochromism and shape memory. The performance of such supercapacitors usually depends on the properties of electrode material, types of separator used and the properties of the electrolyte. Limited experimentation work has been carried out on usage of potassium sulphate in solid form. Potassium sulphate which is conventionally used as an aqueous electrolyte, has been used as a solid electrolyte in order to avoid salt recrystallization observed traditionally. Elimination of salt dissolution not only improved supercapacitor performance but also reduced sample preparation time and cost. Hereby, the comparative study on potassium sulphate as solid electrolyte and aqueous solution along with salt-packet optimization is presented.