Chennai scientists use cake rusk to develop low-cost supercapacitor for storing energy

To meet the ever-growing demand for energy, scientists from an institute in Chennai have developed a low-cost supercapacitor using left-over cake rusk to store energy. The researchers from SRM Institute of Science and Technology in Chennai collected waste cake rusk from local bakeries and heated them in nitrogen gas to obtain highly porous carbon with very high surface area. The study was published in the scientific journal Microporous and Mesoporous Materials.

“The carbon materials obtained from Indian cake rusk have very high porosity, surface area and pore volumes which are superior to the other waste materials investigated,” M Sasidharan, a professor at SRM University, told PTI.

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“The above attributes are very essential for percolation of electrolyte and high charge storage in any electrical device,” said Sasidharan, principal investigator of the study.

Supercapacitors are devices that can store and deliver charge faster than batteries. They are also used as voltage stabilisers, in medical devices and as energy harvesters. The device fabricated by the researchers can light up few LED bulbs.

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According to the scientists, the research could bring down the price of supercapacitors because the price of raw materials is inexpensive.