AKGEC INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY, Vol. 6, No.

Variation of the Capacitance of Supercapacitors

with Current and Frequency
Usman Sammani Sani1 and Ibrahim Haruna Shanono2
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Bayero University, Kano, P.M.B. 3011, Nigeria
1
usmanssani@live.com, 2ihshanono.ele@buk.edu.ng
charge/discharge testing [4], [5]. In this work, impedance
spectroscopy and galvanostatic charge/discharge cycling were
employed to see the frequency as well current behaviour of
supercapacitors.

Abstract -- In this work, the charge and discharge cycle of a

supercapacitor was examined from which it was observed that
the capacitance of the supercapacitor changes while charging
and discharging. So also, the capacitance was observed to vary
with frequency when frequency response analysis was performed
on it.

II. METHODOLOGY
Step I: Galvanostatic Charge/ Discharge cycling was performed
on a capacitor, using an Arbin BT2000 multi channel battery
testing instrument along with its Arbin MITS Pro Software.
The galvanostatic current was set at 50mA. The results below
were obtained from the experiment.

Keywords: Supercapacitors, Energy-Density, Charge-Discharge

Testing.

I. INTRODUCTION
AS A result of the rapid development in technology and the
availability of portable devices, researches on energy storage
devices are under process in order to obtain storage devices
that have higher energy density as well as higher power
density. Batteries have higher energy density but with lower
power density. In the case of supercapacitors, the reverse is
the case [1]. Thus present researches are on how to improve
the energy density of supercapacitors so that it can replace
batteries in some applications [2]. The Ragone Plot below shows
the various forms of energy storage devices, their energy
density and power density.

The charts above were obtained by exporting the results of

the experiment to Microsoft Excel and subsequently plotting
the charts. Amongst the columns from the excel file there is

(1)
The current of a capacitor is [6]
(2)
Thus,
(3)

The value of C was then computed from equation (3) and

plotted against the testing time.
Step 2: Impedance spectroscopy was performed on another
supercapacitor using a VERSASTAT 3 device for a frequency
range of 10 mHz to 10 KHz. The plot of capacitance was
obtained.
III. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
The results from the galvanostatic charge/ discharge showed
how the current and voltage in a capacitor are. When one of
them rose, the other one also rises and vice versa as shown in
figure 2. The charge energy also depended on them as shown
in figure 3. The capacitance of the supercapacitor was observed
to also change during the charging and discharging periods. It
increased while charging and decreased while discharging.
This is not in conformity with equation 3 in which the
capacitance is considered to be constant.

Figure1: Ragone plot of energy storage devices [3].

In order to improve the energy density of supercapacitors,

various materials have been developed and some are still in
the process. The storage capability of these new materials can
only be examined by experimentation. Such experiments could
either be cyclic voltammetry, impedance spectroscopy or
36

VARIATION OF THE CAPACITANCE OF SUPERCAPACITORS

Figure 2. Plot of current and voltage vs testing time.

Figure 3. Plot of Charging Energy vs Testing time(s).

Figure 4. Plot of Capacitance vs Testing time(s).

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AKGEC INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY, Vol. 6, No. 1

Figure 5. Plot showing the variation of capacitance with frequency.

[5].

So also the result from impedance spectroscopy showed how

the capacitance varied with frequency. This implies that the
capacitance value is not constant but it varies with any of the
parameters voltage, current and frequency. As such
manufacturers of such kinds of capacitors now include plots
in their datasheets so that users can be able to make proper
choices.

[6].

Usman Sammani Sani graduated from

Bayero University, Kano in 2008, where he
obtained a bachelor degree of electrical
engineering. He then furthered his studies, in
which he obtained an MSc in Electronic
Communications and Computer Engineering
from The University of Nottingham Malaysia
Campus in 2011.
Usman is presently a lecturer in the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Bayero
University Kano. His research interests include
digital communications, digital circuits design and testing of fabricated
electronic components.

IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper it has been shown that current, voltage and
frequency affect the value of the capacitance of a
supercapacitor. In order for users of such products to make
proper choices, manufacturers of supercapacitors include more
information in their datasheets regarding this issue.
V. REFERENCES
[1].

[2].

[3].

[4].

U. S. Sani, I. H. Shanono, An Equivalent Circuit of Carbon

Electrode Supercapacitors, Proc. 2014 Nigeria Engineering
Conference, pp. 631-639.
P.K. Rajan, A. Sekar, Linear Circuit Analysis, in W.K. Chen(ed),

Lingling Du, Study on Supercapacitor Equivalent Circuit

Model for Power Electronics Applications, Proc. 2009 2nd
International Conference on Power Electronics and Intelligent
Transportation System, 2009, pp. 51-54.
Xiaolai Liu & Jin Li, Study on the Electrode Materials of
Electrochemical Capacitor, International Journal of Chemistry,
Vol. 3, No. 2, June 2011, pp.198-200.
Patrik Johansson, Bjrn Andersson, Comparison of Simulation
Programs for Supercapacitor Modelling: Model Creation and
Verification, unpublished thesis, Chalmers University of
Technology, 2008, p. 3.
U. S. Sani, I. H. Shanono, A Study on Carbon Electrode
Supercapacitors, International Journal of Engineering Research
and Technology, Vol. 2, Issue 6, June 2013, pp. 2957-2964.

Ibrahim Haruna Shanono received his

B.Eng and MSc. degree from Bayero University
Kano and Nottingham University in 2008 and
2012 respectively. He is currently working with
the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Bayero University Kano, Nigeria. His research
interests are in the areas of Renewable Energy,
Power Electronics and Automatic Control
systems.

38

AN EFFICIENT CARRY SELECT ADDER

An Efficient Carry Select AdderA Review

Rishabh Rai1 and Rajni Parashar2
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, Ghaziabad 201 009 UP, India.
1
rishabh.rahul001@gmail.com , 22401.rajni@gmail.com

Abstract -- Adders are one of the widely used digital components

in digital integrated circuit design. Generally,addition is the
basic operation which isused in almost all calculation and
computational systems. So, the efficient implementation and
design of arithmetic units requires the binary adder structures
to be implemented efficiently. A ripple carry adder has smaller
area in design while it has less speed. A carry look ahead adder is
faster in operation as its area requirements are high. Carry
select adders lie in between the spectrum. Design of highly
efficient Carry Select Adder using Square-root technique
suggests many opportunities for increasing the speed and
reducing the area of any data processor. Generally, we have the
carry select adder (CSLA), the fastest adder which is used in
many data-processing processors to perform fast arithmetic
operations. If we study the structure of CSLA, we come to know
that there is scope in area reduction and delay. In this study, a
carry select adder for the computational process is explained
which has some modules to be implemented and synthesized
using HDL coding. Carry select adder (CSLA) is one of the fastest
adder in comparison to all other adders. This review undergoes
very simple and efficient gate-level modification to reduce the
area and delay of the CSLA. Based on this modification, 8-bit,
16-bit, 32-bit and 64-bit Square-Root CSLA (SQRT CSLA)
architecture have been developed having comparison with the
regular SQRT CSLA architecture. The proposed circuit design
has reduced area and delay as compared with the regular SQRT
CSLA.

microprocessors, one can perform millions of instructions per

second. So, the speed of operation is most important factor to
be considered while designing multipliers. Even in servers and
personal computers (PC), power dissipation is an important
design parameter. In todays era, the designs of area-efficient
and power-efficient high-speed logic systems are one of the
crucial areas of research in VLSI design. In digital adders and
circuit design, the speed of addition is limited by the time
required by carry to propagate through the adder. The present
scenario signifies the field where computations need to be
performed using low-power and an area-efficient circuit that
must operate at greater speed which is achievable with lesser
delay; efficient adder implementation becomes a most important
factor as well as the necessity. The example of thedevices like
mobile, laptops etc. require more battery usage. So, one who
working in the field of VLSI has to optimize these three
parameters in a design. These controlling parameters are very
difficult to achieve so depending on demand or application
some compromise between constraints has to be made.
Ripple Carry Adders have most compact design but they are
having slow speed of operation. Whereas, the Carry Look
Ahead Adder has fast speed but it consumes more area. Carry
Select Adder solves both the problem as generated by that of
the Ripple Carry Adder and Carry Look Ahead Adder. A CarrySelect Adder can be structured by using a single Ripple-Carry
Adder and an add-one circuit rather than using the dual RippleCarry Adders.Based on the area, delay and power consumption
requirements, several adder structures have been proposed. A
multiplexer-based add-one circuit is proposed to reduce the
area with less speed penalty. This acts as the sum for each bit
position in an adder which is generated serially only after the
previous bit position has been summed and a carry is
propagated to the next position.

Keywords: CSLA, RCA, BEC

I. INTRODUCTION
IN recent years, the increasing demand for high-speed
arithmetic units in micro-processors, image processing units
and DSP chips has paved the path for development of highspeed adders as addition is an important operation in almost
every arithmetic unit, and it too acts as the general building
block for synthesis of all other arithmetic computations. If we
have to increase the portability of systems as well as the
reliability of the battery, area and power are the critical aspects
which are generally considered. In digital adders and
corresponding circuit designs, the speed of addition has
somerestrictions by the time required to propagate a carry
through the adder. The designs of area and high-speed data
path logic systems arethe most important areas of research&
study in VLSI system design. In electronic system and
applications adders are mostly used. As we know that in

The CSLA is used in many calculation systems to avoid the

problem of carry propagation delay by independently
generating multiple carries and then select a carry to generate
the sum. However, the regular or conventional CSLA is not
area efficient as it uses multiple pairs of Ripple Carry Adders
(RCA) to generate partial sum and carry by taking carry input
Cin=0 and Cin=1,where the final sum and carry are selected by
the multiplexers.

39