The commercial activated carbons are typically prepared by activation from coconut shell char or coal char containing lots of inorganic impurities. They also have pore structure and pore size distribution depending on nanostructure of precursor materials. In this study, two types of commercial activated carbons were applied for EDLC electrode by removing impurities with acid treatments, and controlling pore size distribution and contents of functional group with heat treatment. The effect of the surface functional groups on electrochemical performance of the activated carbon electrodes was investigated. The initial gravimetric and volumetric capacitance of coconut based activated carbon electrode which was acid treated by HNO3 and then heat treated at 800℃ were 90 F/g and 42 F/cc respectively showing 94% of charge-discharge efficiency. Such a good electrochemical performance can be possibly applied to the medium capacitance of EDLC.

The carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were synthesized through the catalytic decomposition of hydrocarbons in a quartz tube reactor. The CNFs prepared from C3H8 at 550℃ was selected as the purification sample due to the higher content of impurity than that prepared from other conditions. In this study, we carried out the purification of CNFs by oxidation in air or carbon dioxide after acid treatment, and investigated the influence of purification parameters such as kind of acid, concentration, oxidation time, and oxidation temperature on the structure of CNFs. The metal catalysts could be easily eliminated from the prepared CNFs by liquid phase purification with various acids and it was verified by ICP analysis, in which, for example, Ni content decreased from 2.51% to 0.18% with 8% nitric acid. However, the particulate carbon and heterogeneous fibers were not removed from the prepared CNFs by thermal oxidation in air and carbon dioxide. This result can be explained by that the direction of graphene sheet in CNFs is vertical to the fiber axis and the CNFs are oxidized at about the similar rate with the impurity carbon.

Physical properties of artificial graphite electrodes were evaluated along three different directions; circumferential (X), radial (Y), and axial (Z) directions. Four kinds of commercial electrode products were used in this study for the evaluation; pole (AP) and nipple (AN) of manufacturer A, pole (BP) and nipple (BN) of manufacturer B. The mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties in X and Y directions were very similar to each other. In Z direction, however, the mechanical properties, including flexural strength and compressive strength, were higher, and electric resistance and thermal expansion were much lower than those in the other directions. The microstructures observed by optical microscope and scanning electron microscope revealed that the differences in properties by the measuring direction were caused by the preferential alignment of needle cokes along the Z direction. When comparing the properties of the electrode samples in the same direction, the mechanical properties mainly depended on the bulk density or porosity of the samples as well as preferential alignment of needle cokes.