Advancements in ceramic materials for high-performance supercapacitors: Strategies, challenges, and opportunities

Abstract

Supercapacitors (SCs) are emerging as efficient and long-lasting energy storage devices, and ceramic materials have gained popularity due to their thermal stability, wide operating range, and structural strength. However, factors such as low specific surface area (SSA), poor intrinsic conductivity, and limited surface activity limit their performance. Recent advances in ceramic electrodes, including metal oxides (MOs), hydroxides, sulfides, carbides, nitrides, MXenes, and ceramic-based hybrids, show promise in strategies such as nanostructuring, compositing with conductive carbons or metals, heterostructure design, and defect/doping engineering to improve charge storage, electron transport, and cycling stability. Despite these advancements, scalable fabrication, mechanical integrity, and long-term stability remain significant challenges. This paper critically examines existing work, highlights typical fabrication and optimization methodologies, and offers future research prospects for high-performance, sustainable, and economically viable ceramic-based SCs for advanced energy storage.