Porous electrochemical supercapacitive materials, as an important type of
new-generation energy storage devices, require a detailed analysis and
knowledge of their capacitive performances upon different
charging/discharging regimes. The investigation of the responses to dynamic
perturbations of typical representatives, noble metal oxides, carbonaceous
materials and RuO2-impregnated carbon blacks, by electrochemical impedance
spectroscopy (EIS) is presented. This presentation follows a brief
description of supercapacitive behavior and origin of pseudocapacitive
response of noble metal oxides. For all investigated materials, the
electrical charging/discharging equivalent of the EIS response was found to
obey the transmission line model envisaged as so-called ?resistor/capacitor
(RC) ladder?. The ladder features are correlated to material physicochemical
properties, its composition and the composition of the electrolyte. Fitting
of the EIS data of different supercapacitive materials to appropriate RC
ladders enables the in-depth profiling of the capacitance and pore resistance
of their porous thin-layers and finally the complete revelation of capacitive
energy storage issues.