Supercapacitor Degradation and Life-time
Time of life is influenced by the operating temperature, applied voltage as well as the charge/discharge current [1 to 3]. The SC cells
The life of supercapacitors will double for every 10°C decrease in temperature or voltage by 0.1V. Supercapacitors operated at room temperature can have life expectancies of several years compared to operating the capacitors at their maximum rated temperature. L1= Load life rating of the super capacitor (typically 1000 hours at rated temperature).
In theory, this table represents the lifetime of the supercapacitor, ranging from a little over one month of life to over 165 years! More realistic applications running the supercapacitor at full 6.0V and room temperature would achieve over 2.5 years of operation. Derating the voltage by only 0.2V will double that lifetime to over 5 years.
Therefore, how fast a supercapacitor ages and reaches its end of life is therefore largely up to the user and use case. "End of life" for supercapacitors is defined as either: ESR of 200% from the original rating. A supercapacitor is considered to be at the end of its life, whenever one of these two conditions is met.
These limits, used to determine the end of life, also apply to Cycle Life, which is how many charge/ discharge cycles the supercapacitor can complete before meeting the ESR or capacitance limits. The typical Cycle Life for EDLC supercapacitors is usually in the 100's of thousands of cycles.
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