SBIR: Improved High-Performance Ultracapacitor Electrodes for Hybrid Vehicles and Other Applications

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the development of improved high-performance, low-cost carbon electrodes for ultracapacitors. The proposed innovation is the use of proprietary carbon-preparation techniques to produce high-performance, low-cost carbon electrodes. The first Phase I objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of manufacturing carbon electrodes in a system comprising several proprietary manufacturing improvements described in the proposal. A number of carbon materials will be synthesized and tested to prove and illustrate the concept. The second Phase I objective is to demonstrate high performance of the manufactured carbon for ultracapacitor applications. The primary applications of the developed high-performance carbon ultracapacitors would be in power systems for hybrid and electric cars, next-generation vehicles (NGVs), cellular telephones and other portable devices, with additional applications including high rate, short pulse delivery of large charges (such as pulsed lasers), power-supply low-frequency smoothing, and a variety of military, medical (defibrillators), telecommunications, and computer systems.