On the inverse relaxation approach to supercapacitors characterization

[Display omitted] A novel inverse relaxation technique for supercapacitor characterization is developed, modeled numerically, and experimentally tested on a number of commercial supercapacitors. It consists in shorting a supercapacitor for a short time τ, then switching to the open circuit regime and measuring an initial rebound and long-time relaxation. The results obtained are: the ratio of “easy” and “hard” to access capacitance and the dependence C(τ), that determines what the capacitance the system responds at time-scale τ; it can be viewed as an alternative to used by some manufacturers approach to characterize a supercapacitor by fixed capacitance and time-scale dependent internal resistance. Among the advantages of proposed technique is that it does not require a source of fixed current, what simplifies the setup and allows a high discharge current regime. The approach can be used as a replacement of low-frequency impedance measurements and the ones of IEC 62391 type, it can be effectively applied to characterization of supercapacitors and other relaxation type systems with porous internal structure. The technique can be completely automated by a microcontroller to measure, analyze, and output the results. •Inverse relaxation approach is a novel technique to characterize supercapacitors.•Inverse relaxation can be used instead of low-frequency impedance spectroscopy.•Inverse relaxation can be used instead of IEC 62391.•The approach can be completely automated to measure, analyze, and output the results.