Engineers have achieved a significant advance in the international effort to create energy storage technologies that combine rapid charging with strong power output, paving the way for next-generation systems in electric transportation, grid support and everyday electronics.
According to findings published in Nature Communications, the researchers have developed a new carbon-based material that enables supercapacitors to hold energy levels comparable to traditional lead-acid batteries while releasing that energy far more quickly than conventional battery designs.
Supercapacitors are a developing category of energy storage devices that rely on electrostatic charge storage instead of the chemical reactions used in batteries. A long-standing challenge has been that only a small share of the carbon surface area needed for energy storage has been usable.
Unlocking More of Carbon’s Potential
Professor Mainak Majumder, Director of the ARC Research Hub for Advanced Manufacturing with 2D Materials (AM2D) in Monash’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, participated in the study.
“Our team has shown how to unlock much more of that surface area by simply changing the way the material is heat-treated,” said Professor Majumder.
“This discovery could allow us to build fast-charging supercapacitors that store enough energy to replace batteries in many applications, and deliver it far more quickly.”
Innovative Graphene Architecture Drives the Breakthrough
The researchers traced this progress to a newly designed material architecture called multiscale reduced graphene oxide (M-rGO), created from natural graphite, an abundant resource in Australia.
Through a rapid thermal annealing process, the team formed a highly curved graphene structure with controlled pathways that allow ions to move with exceptional speed and efficiency. This produced a material capable of both high energy density and high power density, a combination that is rarely achieved in a single device.
Record Performance in Real Devices
Dr. Petar Jovanović, a research fellow in the ARC AM2D Hub and co-author of the study, explained that when incorporated into pouch cell devices, the Monash supercapacitors demonstrated:
- Volumetric energy densities of up to 99.5 Wh/L (in ionic liquid electrolytes)
- Power densities as high as 69.2 kW/L
- Rapid charging capabilities with excellent cycle stability.
“These performance metrics are among the best ever reported for carbon-based supercapacitors, and crucially, the process is scalable and compatible with Australian raw materials,” Dr. Jovanović said.
Moving Toward Commercial Use
Dr. Phillip Aitchison, CTO of the Monash University spinout Ionic Industries and a co-author of the study, noted that efforts to commercialize the technology are already underway.
“Ionic Industries was established to commercialize innovations such as these and we are now making commercial quantities of these graphene materials,” said Dr. Aitchison.
“We’re working with energy storage partners to bring this breakthrough to market-led applications — where both high energy and fast power delivery are essential.”
The project received support from the Australian Research Council and the US Air Force Office of Sponsored Research and aligns with Monash University’s broader goal of advancing materials for a low-carbon energy future.