Advantages of Super Capacitor in Automotive Applications

In recent years, with the popularity of automobiles, the types and quantities of electronic products in vehicles are increasing. Many of these products are equipped with two power supply methods, one from the car itself, power supplied through the vehicle's standard cigarette lighter interface. The other comes from backup power, which is used to keep the device working after the power to the cigarette lighter is turned off. At present, most automotive electronic products use liquid lithium-ion batteries as backup power sources. But supercapacitors are gradually replacing lithium-ion batteries. Why? Let’s first understand how the two energy storage devices work.

How supercapacitors work:

Supercapacitors use carbon-based actives, conductive carbon black and binder mixed as the pole piece material, and use polarized electrolyte to absorb positive and negative ions in the electrolyte to form an electric double layer structure for energy storage. No chemical reaction occurs during the energy storage process. 

The working principle of lithium battery:

Lithium batteries mainly rely on the movement of lithium ions between the positive and negative electrodes to work. During the charging and discharging process, lithium ions are intercalated and deintercalated back and forth between the two electrodes. During charging, lithium ions are deintercalated from the positive electrode and intercalated into the negative electrode through the electrolyte, and the negative electrode is in a lithium-rich state. The charging and discharging process is a chemical reaction.

From the working principles of the above two energy storage elements, it is concluded why the application of supercapacitors in driving recorders can replace lithium-ion batteries. The following are the advantages of supercapacitors applied in driving recorders:

1) The working principle of lithium-ion batteries is chemical energy storage, and there are hidden dangers. The advantage is that when you leave the vehicle power supply, you can still have a certain period of battery life, but lithium ions and electrolytes are flammable and explosive. Lithium-ion batteries, once short-circuited, can burn or explode. The supercapacitor is an electrochemical component, but no chemical reaction occurs during its energy storage process. This energy storage process is reversible, and it is precisely because of this that the supercapacitor can be repeatedly charged and discharged millions of times.

2)The power density of supercapacitors is relatively high. This is because the internal resistance of supercapacitors is relatively small, and ions can be quickly gathered and released, which is much higher than the power level of lithium-ion batteries, making the charging and discharging speed of supercapacitors relatively high.

3) The high temperature resistance of lithium-ion batteries is not good. Usually, the protection level is higher than 60 degrees Celsius. In the case of high temperature exposure to the sun or short circuit conditions, it is easy to cause spontaneous combustion and other factors. The supercapacitor has a wide temperature working range up to -40℃~85℃.

4) The performance is stable and the cycle time is long. Since the charging and discharging of the supercapacitor is a physical process and does not involve a chemical process, the loss is extremely small.

5) Super capacitors are green and environmentally friendly. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors do not use heavy metals and other harmful substances. As long as the selection and design are reasonable, there is no risk of bulge explosion under high temperature and high pressure environment during use, which is suitable for the application scenarios of vehicles.

6) The supercapacitor can be welded, so there is no problem such as weak battery contact.

7) No special charging circuit and control discharging circuit are required.

8) Compared with lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors do not have a negative impact on their use time due to overcharge and overdischarge. Of course, supercapacitors also have the disadvantages of short discharge time and large voltage changes during the discharge process, so some specific occasions need to be used with batteries. In short, the advantages of supercapacitors are suitable for the application scenarios of in-vehicle products, and the driving recorder is one example.

The above content is the advantages of super capacitor in automotive applications. Hopefully it’s helpful to people who want to learn about super capacitors. JYH HSU(JEC) Electronics Ltd (or Dongguan Zhixu Electronic Co., Ltd.) has been dedicating itself to the research and development, production and marketing of safety capacitors for over 30 years. 

Welcome to visit our official website and contact us for any questions.