A retrospective on the inception and development of structural power composites
Author(s)
Greenhalgh, Emile S
Nguyen, Sang
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
This paper sets out the motivation for structural power composites: structural materials imbued with the capability to store and deliver electrical energy. The conception and development of structural supercapacitors at Imperial College London is described, with current devices now starting to approach the performance of conventional ‘monofunctional’ composite laminates and supercapacitors. Although these materials could offer tremendous lightweighting and energy storage benefits, there are considerable research challenges yet to be addressed. Melding of composite mechanics and electrochemistry disciplines leads to a daunting research landscape, so the effort has been partitioned into four themes: Constituent Development, Device Assembly and Characterisation, Multifunctional Modelling and Design and Scale-Up and Demonstration. This paper culminates by setting out, for each theme, where future research should focus to advance this exciting technology.
Date Issued
2025-11-01
Date Acceptance
2025-03-01
Citation
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 2025, 36 (18-19), pp.1251-1254
ISSN
1045-389X
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Start Page
1251
End Page
1254
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures
Volume
36
Issue
18-19
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025. Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0) This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
License URL
Identifier
10.1177/1045389X251325998
Subjects
Multifunctional
composites
structural supercapacitor
carbon fibre
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
1045389X251325998
Date Publish Online
2025-03-20