Charging Dynamics in Nanoporous Electrodes

Abstract

Using the capacitive difference of the electric double layer at different ion concentrations is a fairly new method of extracting energy from salt and fresh water mixing. Essential to this Capacitive Double Layer Expansion is the speed with which electrodes placed in a bath of electrolyte charge. Experiments have shown a charging time for these nanoporous electrodes a million times slower than predicted by one-dimensional models with two planar electrodes. In this thesis these simple one-dimensional models are expanded by adding planar electrodes on either side of the model. The results from these expanded models will be compared to equivalent electric circuit behaviour. These electric circuits in turn predict the charging behaviour of macroscopic nanoporous electrodes and offer a possible explanation for their slow charging time in experiments.