Dehydrated sucrose nanoparticles as spacers for graphene-ionic liquid supercapacitor electrodes

The addition of dehydrated sucrose nanoparticles increases the gravimetric capacitance of electrochemical double-layer capacitor electrodes produced via the evaporative consolidation of graphene oxide–water–ionic liquid gels by more than two-fold. Dehydrated sucrose adsorbs onto graphene oxide and serves as a spacer, preventing the graphene oxide from restacking during solvent evaporation. Despite 61 wt % of the solids being electrochemically inactive dehydrated sucrose nanoparticles, the best electrodes achieved an energy density of ∼13.3 Wh/kg, accounting for the total mass of all electrode components.