Dimensional changes in carbon-based supercapacitor electrodes were investigated using a combination of electrochemical dilatometry and in situ small-angle X-ray scattering. A novel hierarchical carbon material with ordered mesoporosity was synthesized, providing the unique possibility to track electrode expansion and shrinkage on the nanometer scale and the macroscopic scale simultaneously. Two carbons with similar mesopore structure but different amounts of micropores were investigated, employing two different aqueous electrolytes. The strain of the electrodes was always positive, but asymmetric with respect to positive and negative applied voltages. The asymmetry strongly increased with increasing microporosity, giving hints to the possible physical origin of electrosorption induced pore swelling.
Keywords: dilatometry; electrical double-layer capacitor; in situ; ordered porous carbon; small-angle X-ray scattering; supercapacitor; swelling.