Lithium-Ion Capacitor - Review of applications and advantages

Abstract - In the last few years, lithium-ion capacitors received special attention due to their favorable performance characteristics in terms of power, safety and cycle life compared to the lithium-ion battery technology and higher energy density compared to the electrical double-layer capacitor technology. In particular the combination of higher energy and power densities make this technology very attractive for most of the traction applications where high peak powers are required. The main advantage of lithium-ion capacitors is the higher energy density and the higher nominal voltage compared to electrical double-layer capacitors. This makes that less cells will be needed in series and less stacks in parallel in order to achieve the needed capacity and voltage of the energy storage system, allowing to reduce the mass and the volume of the system. However, the implementation of this technology until now was quite limited compared to electrical double-layer capacitors. In this paper, the operating principles and specific characteristics of lithium-ion capacitors are highlighted and an overview is provided of the applications in which this technology is already implemented.