The NEC Corporation was among the first few companies to commercially introduce supercapacitors to the world; the Standard Oil Company of Ohio (SOHIO) is mainly attributed for the invention. Post the emergence of superconductors as a more efficient energy storage solution, the popularity of the EC technology surged instantly.
The closest future application for supercapacitors is in energy storage and rapid charging. Many applications of this type have already hit the market, and are changing how we think about energy storage. The realization of a commercially viable, standalone supercapacitor battery may be further off into the future.
The supercapacitor is considered an electrochemical capacitor (EC) because it stores electrical charge in the electric double layer at an interface of a surface-electrolyte. The large surface area joined with a double-layered tight area results in one of the highest capacitance outputs of any device.
The move towards the development of high-performance materials has gained utter palpability among the supercapacitor manufacturers, with the ever-growing demand for supercapacitors in various industrial applications, such as wearable consumer electronics and electric vehicles.
The designs of supercapacitors have advanced through several generations ever since their first commercial launch. Research organizations and leading companies in the power electronics industry are still focusing on innovating around the manufacturing methods and materials to further improve the cost-efficiency and performance of supercapacitors.
Starting in 1975 NEC carried out fundamental investigations, rapidly developed manufacturing capability, and began to market the Supercapacitor in 1978. It is for this reason that the only appropriate use of the term Supercapacitor is for NECs EC products.