Enhancement of electrolytic performance of 1,4-dipropyl-1,2,4-triazolium salts with hydroquinone as an additive for symmetrical supercapacitors

Abstract The goal of this work is to improve the performance of supercapacitors by incorporating hydroquinone, an organic additive into triazolium based ionic liquid as electrolyte. In order to compare the effects of hydroquinone with 1,4-dipropyl-1,2,4-triazolium hexafluorophosphate (1,4-dipropTPF6), electrochemical studies like CV, EIS were performed. 1H NMR was taken for structural characterization of the synthesized IL. The development of ionogel polymer using HQ with IL demonstrates the potential use of ionic liquid gel polymer electrolyte in the field of energy storage. To check the potential applicability, two devices were fabricated using ionic liquid and the other that combined HQ with ionic liquid in 1:50 ratio and employed activated carbon as electrodes. To compare both the systems electrochemical analysis like GCD, EIS, CV were performed. The GCD was tested for both the devices and the calculated power density and energy density for the prototype containing ILGPE with 1,4-dipropTPF6 were 437.20 W/kgand 2.52 W h/kg respectively with 79% cyclic retention even after 1500 cycles and the calculated power density and energy density for the prototype containing ILGPE of HQ:1,4-dipropTPF6 (1:50) were 764.5 W/kg and 7.00 W h/kgrespectively with 82% cyclic retention even after 2000 cycles. The supercapacitor assembled with HQ and 1,4-dipropTPF6 functioned extremely well and improved the supercapacitor's performance.