2006 International Conference on Power System Technology

A Study of Supercapacitor Parameters and

Characteristi cs
Y. Y. Yao, D. L. Zhang, Member, IEEE, and D. G. Xu, Member, IEEE
a supercapacitor is so close that they can only load an operating voltage of less than 3V. In high power applications, many supercapacitors need to be connected in series for a higher voltage level, so a voltage balancing is necessary.

Abstract The supercapacitor is a high efficient and green energy storage component that offers intensive charging and discharging current and performs a perfect reliability and cycling ability. In this paper, three topics are discussed for supercapacitor-based system research and application. Firstly, a comparison among several parameter models of the supercapacitor is presented. In the same time, the characteristics of ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) and EPR (Equivalent Parallel Resistance) are described and studied. Secondly, the methods of voltage sharing and overvoltage protection for series connected supercapacitors are discussed, and their advantages and disadvantages are compared with each other. Thirdly, a radiation experiment is taken to examine the supercapacitor in its anti-radiation ability for spaceflight application. Index Terms equivalent series resistance, parameter model, supercapacitor, voltage sharing, radiation
I. INTRODUCTION

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Fig. 1. Equivalent model of supercapacitor

power density, the supercapacitor presents more advantages than a battery or an electrostatic capacitor. But before considering applications, it is necessary to develop in details about the component and predict its electrical and energetic behavior. So establishing an electrical parameter model for the supercapacitor is the first step. Fig. 1 is a simplified equivalent model of the supercapacitor that is only used for principle verification. A multi-branch model presented in Fig. 2 defines the capacitive behavior of the supercapacitor [1], [2]. The authors claimed that an ideal supercapacitor model should be an infinite number of RC branches. A similar transmission line model shown in Fig. 3 is presented and analyzed theoretically by F.Belhachenmi and S. Rael [3]. For the fabrication materials, the ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) and EPR (Equivalent Parallel Resistance) those are shown in Fig. 1 have some influences on supercapacitor charging and discharging behaviors. For the fabrication technology, the distance between two electrodes in
This work was supported by China Aerospace Science and Technology Innovation Fund, in 2003. Y. Y. Yao is with Power Electronics and Motion Control Research Center, Shenzhen Graduate School, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China.

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Fig. 2. Multi-branch model of a supercapacitor

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Fig. 3. Transmission line network model of a supercapacitor

II. CHARACTERISTICS OF ELECTRICAL PARAMETERS

D. G. Xu is with Electrical Engineering and Automation Department, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China. (e-mail: xudiangghit.edu.cn)

(e-mail: yaoyuying(hitsz.edu.cn). D. L. Zhang is with Power Electronics and Motion Control Research Center, Shenzhen Graduate School, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China. (e-mail: zhangdonglai(a263.net)

The multi-branch model defines the capacitance of the supercapacitor as a constant capacitor with a parallel capacitor linearly dependent on the voltage. This voltage dependence capacitance is tested by experiment that more energy can be

1-4244-0111-9/06/$20.00c02006 IEEE.

stored in it than expected (if considering the constant capacitance given by the manufacturer only) and explains why voltage will not increase linearly during charging [1]. The transmission line model is a complex network of non-linear capacitors connected between them by resistors [2]. In short, the most important parameters of a supercapacitor include capacitance (abbreviated as C), ESR and EPR (which is also called leakage resistance). C decides the energy capability that can be stored in a supercapacitor. Generally speaking, ESR is consists of electrode resistance, electrolyte resistance and contact resistance and wastes power for internal heating when charging or discharging. For the supercapacitor, ESR is almost less than one milliohm but influences the energy efficiency and power density. EPR is an inner equivalent parallel resistance usually hundreds of kilohms and decides the leakage current when the supercapacitor is in a stand-by mode. ESR and EPR can be measured approximately based on the supercapacitor's simplified model.
A. Voltage Drop The first method for ESR is voltage decline at the beginning of discharging as shown in Fig.4. When a supercapacitor is charged to the rated voltage, discharge it and record the instantaneous voltage drop and current by two probes of an oscillograph. The voltage drop and discharging current can be measured through resistor sampling, thus the ESR is the quotient of them.

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Fig. 6. Simulation result for ESR

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Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of ESR measurement

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Fig. 7. Voltage plot charged with a DC current source

B. Constant Current Charging The second one is constant current charging method. After discharging the supercapacitor thoroughly, leave it for a long time and charge it by an AC current source. The voltage cross the supercapacitor is just the ESR voltage drop because the capacitive component is equivalent to short circuit to AC signals. This method is test by experiment and simulation, and the results are shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6. It is evident that the error between simulation and experiment is minute. If a DC current source is used, the voltage will increase from a specified value other than zero, where the initial value is the ESR voltage. This perfect process is shown in Fig. 7. Actually the voltage doesn't arise linearly, but the later variations have no influences on ESR calculation.

where Uo and U are the voltage of the supercapacitor before and after discharging respectively, R and C are the resistance and capacitance respectively, and t is the discharging time. EPR is given by:
EPR =-(t2-tl ) In U12 C

(2)

where U1 and U2 are the voltage at t1 and t2 respectively, C is the supercapacitor's rated capacitance. The testing result is shown in Fig. 8.

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C. EPR Measurement EPR measurement is a self-discharging method described as follows. When the supercapacitor is charged to a specified voltage, disconnect the power supply and leave it in the selfdischarging state. The voltage of the supercapacitor declines approximately according to equation (1).
U = Uoe R

(1)

Fig. 8. Discharging plot of 600F, 50F and 300F supercapacitors

voltage balancing and overvoltage protection: passive resistors, switched resistors, Zener diodes and active DC/DC converter [9]. They are shown in Fig.10. The passive resistors solution is the simplest one but has the lowest efficiency; the active converter is the most efficient with a considerable cost [5]. The switched resistors method as D. EIS Testing shown in Fig. 11 has a similar efficiency with the Zener diodes The above maneuverable testing methods can be solution, but the former is more flexible than the latter. For implemented in the laboratory, but they have poor veracity. once the type of Zener diodes are determined, the protecting EIS (Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy) testing is an voltage limit is fixed. By switched resistors method, the effective method to measure and analyze the parameters of voltage limit can be reset by the shunt resistors of the supercapacitors. A sinusoidal voltage perturbation power regulator TL43 1. source is applied to the supercapacitor at a well-defined frequency range. Record the amplitude and phase of the voltage when the signal sweeps through the range repeatedly and plot the Nyquist curve to get the equivalent impedance of the supercapacitor [5], [6]. A typical Nyquist plot is shown in Fig.9. At high frequencies, the supercapacitor can be equivalent to ESR, which is represented by a vertical straight line shifted on the real axis by its ESR. At low frequencies a supercapacitor is presented as an impedance including EPR in Si series with ESR and approaches a near vertical straight line R shifted on the real axis by the sum of ESR and EPR.
This plot includes three supercapacitors (50F/2.7V, 300F/2.7V and 600F/2.7V all made by PowerStar, China). In the same time, EPR varies with environment temperature, and self-discharging becomes more serious when the temperature rises [4].

(a) resistors

(b) switched resistors

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(c) Zener diodes (d) DC/DC converter

Fig. 10. Voltage balancing units

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Fig. 9. EIS Nyquist plot of a supercapacitor

III. VOLTAGE SHARING AND OVREVOLTAGE PROTECTION

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An important parameter of the supercapacitor is the rated operating voltage and its maximum is generally less than 3V. So it is necessary to connect a large number of supercapacitor cells into a supercapacitor module in order to reach an acceptable efficiency of the power. Today, standard modules with voltages of 14V, 28V and 42V are available. But connection in series increases the total ESR of the module. If the ESR needs to be reduced, additional strings with the same

Fig. 11. Schematic diagram of switched resistor solution

number of series capacitors should be parallel connected with the first string [7], [8]. But the inequalities of capacitance and resistance between individual supercapacitors connected in series result in the total voltage being unevenly distributed throughout the whole module, thus voltage balancing and limiting measures must be taken for the sake of safety. There are four solutions to be used for supercapacitors

For the voltage limitation of the supercapacitor, suppose in a simple RLC series circuit, when the frequency of power source is near to the resonance frequency, the voltage of the supercapacitor is Q times of the power source (where Q is the quality factor). It is of extraordinary importance to consider the possibility of resonance and security of supercapacitors. Simulations by using the practical parameters and the

simplified model of the supercapacitors indicated that neither

series resonance nor parallel resonance is nearly possible, but it is dangerous when the equivalent capacitance of a parallel capacitor string is very low (when a supercapacitor is parallel connected with a small-capacitance electrostatic capacitor).
IV. RADIATION EXPERIMENT Because supercapacitors can discharge high pulse current and have much higher reliability and life cycle than common batteries, they are the first choice in spacecrafts and flight devices. The heavy radioactive space environment is full of y radial, x radial, high-energy proton and so on, so it is a huge menace for the aircraft and its components. It is necessary to take an experiment to test the effect of the supercapacitor's performances upon radiation. Two identical groups of supercapacitors are selected for radiation with Co60 in the experiment. The capacitance of each supercapacitor are measured by constant current charging and recorded before radiation. One group is radiated under a dosage of 25 kGy (lasting four days) while the other group is radiated by a dosage of 300 kGy (lasting a week). Then the supercapacitors are charged with the same current and their capacitances are

VI. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4]
P. Barrade, "Energy storage and applications with super-capacitors," presented at ANAE, Bressanone, Italy, 2003. L. Zubieta, R. Bonert, and F. Dawson, "Considerations in the design of energy storage systems using double-layer supercapacitors," presented at IPEC, Tokyo, Japan, 2000. F. Belhachemi, S. Real, and B. Davat, "A physical based model of power electric double-layer supercapacitors," IEEE. pp. 3069-3071, 2000. A. K. Shukla, S. Sampath, and K. Vijayamohanan, "Electrochemical supercapacitors: energy storage beyond batteries," Current Science. vol 79, No. 12, pp. 1656-1661, Dec. 2000. C. Andrew Chu, B. Paul, "Comparison of commercial supercapacitors and high-power lithium-ion batteries for lower-assist applications in hybrid electric vehicles I. Initial Characterization," Journal of Power Sources. No. 112, pp.236-246, 2002. Adam Marcus Namisnyk, "A survey of electrochemical supercapacitor technology," Bachelor dissertation, Dept. Faculty of Engineering, Univ. Sydney, University of Technology, 2003. Abou EI-Maaty M. Abd El-Aal, "Modelling and simulation of a photovoltaic fuel cell hybrid system," Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Electrical Engineering, Univ. Kassel, Germany, 2005. A. Rufer, D. Hotellier, and P. Barrade, "A supercapacitor-based energy storage substation for voltage compensation in weak transportation networks," IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 19, pp.629-630, Apr. 2004. D. Linzen, S. Buller, and E. Karden, "Analysis and evaluation of charge balancing circuits on performance, reliability and lifetime of supercapacitor systems," IEEE. pp. 1589 1590, 2003.

[5]

[6]
[7]

[8]
[9]

calculated and compared with the original values. The comparison results are listed in Table I, C in the table cell means the capacitance of a supercapacitor. For most supercapacitors, their capacitances decreased. The conclusion can be obtained that most supercapacitors' capacitances decrease after radiation but the variation is no more than 12% if only the supercapacitor is a qualified product.
TABLE I COMPARISON OF SUPERCAPACITOR s' CAPACITANCE BEFORE AND AFTER RADIATION

VII. BIOGRAPHIES
Y.Y. Yao was bom in Shanxin Province in on February 3th, 1980. She received the Bachelor degree in electrical engineering from ~~~ ~Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2002, the Master degree in power electronics and motion control from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2004. Now she is pursuing Ph.D. degree of power electronics and motion control in Shenzhen Graduate School, Harbin Institute of

China,

Rated C (F)
1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.47 0.47 0.47 0.47

Producer
TOKIN TOKIN TOKIN TOKIN FUCHEN FUCHEN FUCHEN FUCHEN NEC NEC NEC NEC

Before C (F)
1.014 1.015 0.958 0.947 1.245 1.334 1.293 1.094 0.493 0.534 0.509 0.603

After C (F)
1.036 0.899 1.020 0.946 0.404 0 1.360 1.411 0.487 0.507 0.480 0.541

Dosage

(kGy)
300 300 25 25 300 300 25 25 300 300 25 25

Absolute variation (F) 0.022 -0.116 0.062 -0.001 -0.841 -1.334 0.067 0.317 -0.006 -0.027 -0.029 -0.062

Relative Variation (Oo) 2.17 11.43 6.47 0.11 67.56 100 5.18 28.98 1.22 5.06 5.70 10.28

Technology.

1996, the Doctor degree in mechanical electronic engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 1999. He is a Member of IEEE. His special fields of interest include nondestructive examination, power electronics, informative home appliance network and signal processing.
China,

Apr., 1973. He received the Bachelor degree in industry automation from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 1994, the Master degree in electrical engineering department from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in
in

D.L. Zhang was born in Jilin Province in China,

V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT

deep gratitude to my professor who enlightening suggestions and much confidence. I am thankful to my partners for their help and hard work on the project.
I wish to
express my

gave me many

D.G. Xu was born in Heilongjiang Province in in Oct., 1960. He received the Bachelor degree in automation department from Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China, in 1981, the Master degree in electrical engineering department from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 1984, the Doctor degree in electrical engineering department from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 1989. He is a Member of IEEE (40296505); a member of International Steering Committee, IEEE International Conference on Power Electronics and Drive Systems; a member of Technical Program Committee, International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference. His special fields of interest include power electronics, power drive and automation, lightening electronics and AC servo motor system.