Solar energy is a renewable and abundant energy source that has myriad potential applications to be tapped. Energy storage devices often present diminishing performance at lower temperatures, and sometimes they even fail during cold weather; therefore, a renewable technology to spur such sluggish performance not only is important for a sustainable future but also may inspire new-concept devices such as ignition sensors. Here, under solar illumination, the capacitance, energy density and power density of supercapacitors are all largely enhanced owing to the photothermal effect. The supercapacitors employ three-dimensional hierarchical graphene as the electrodes, and show an absorption of >92.88% over the entire solar spectrum, a response time of <200 s, and a surface temperature change of ∼39 °C under 1 solar illumination (1 kW m⁻²). Under 1 solar illumination, the capacitance of the pseudocapacitor increases by ∼1.5 times, and the capacitance of the electric double-layer capacitor increases by ∼3.7 times. The mechanism is quantitatively analyzed and discussed. This work provides new insights into the applications of solar energy and offers new design options for the development of energy storage devices.

中文翻译：

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超级电容器的太阳能热驱动电容增强†

太阳能是一种可再生的，丰富的能源，具有许多潜在的应用潜力。能量存储设备在较低温度下通常会降低性能，有时甚至在寒冷的天气中也会失效。因此，刺激这种低迷性能的可再生技术不仅对于可持续发展的未来很重要，而且还可能激发诸如点火传感器之类的新概念设备。在这里，在太阳光照下，由于光热效应，超级电容器的电容，能量密度和功率密度都大大提高了。超级电容器采用三维分层石墨烯作为电极，在1个太阳光照射下，在整个太阳光谱中吸收率> 92.88％，响应时间<200 s，表面温度变化约39°C（1千瓦米^-2）。在1次日光照射下，伪电容器的电容增加了约1.5倍，而双电层电容器的电容则增加了约3.7倍。对该机制进行了定量分析和讨论。这项工作为太阳能的应用提供了新见解，并为储能设备的开发提供了新的设计选择。