Calendar and Charge-Discharge Cycle-Life Studies of Supercapacitors for Vehicular Applications

Supercapacitors, also called Electric Double Layer Capacitors (EDLCs), have received an increasing interest from the power electronics community due to their high power density and compact size. These advantages make them good candidates for high-performance applications, such as electric/hybrid vehicles and railway transportation. Because supercapacitors have a long cycle life, calendar and charge-discharge cycle life prediction is of primary importance for vehicular applications. Based on the Arrhenius model, the supercapacitors’ aging is accelerated by the elevated temperature. Therefore, the charge-discharge impact on the cycle life is not considered. In this paper, the correlation between calendar and charge-discharge aging is established and the obtained cycle life prediction model was validated by experimental results. The tests were conducted on the supercapacitors BCAP0350F of Maxwell Technology and they were performed at various conditions of temperature and bias voltage.