Definition of Terms

 Activated Carbon (AC) - highly adsorbent powdered or granular carbon made usually by
carbonization and chemical activation and used chiefly for purifying by adsorption (Merriam
Webster). Activated carbon is considered as material for electrodes and supercapacitors due to
its pore size and adsorption abilities. Activated carbons are widely used as supercapacitative
electrodes due to its lower cost, material availability, and high surface area (Taer et al., 2018).
 Activation – the process of activating either through physical or chemical. In activated carbon,
chemical activation is most commonly used with chemicals such as KOH.
 Adsorption – the capability of a solid substance to adhere or attract to their surface molecules of
gases or solutions with which they are in contact.
 Biomass – organic matter used as fuel. It is plant or animal material used for energy production
or in various industrial processes as raw material.
 Capacitance (technical term) - property of an electric nonconductor that permits the storage of
energy. Generally, researchers have claimed that the higher the specific surface area of an
activated carbon, the higher the specific capacitance should be expected, one key factor in
determining the potential of any carbon derived material as a supercapacitor
 Capacitance (simplified term) – ability of a system to store electrical charge when a potential
difference exists between the conductors
 Carbonization – the act of burning dead plants and animals into carbon within an anaerobic
atmosphere. Usually, past researches utilize a nitrogenous atmosphere inside the oven
 Conductivity – the property or power of conducting heat, electricity or sound. It measures how
effective a medium is in conducting electrical current
 Current – the flow of electrical charge measured in Amperes.
 Cyclic voltammetry (technical term)- a type of potentiodynamic electrochemical measurement
which measures the current that develops in an electrochemical apparatus under conditions
where voltage is in excess predicted by the Nernst equation. In an experiment, the working
electrode potential is ramped linearly versus time.
 Cyclic voltammetry (simplified term) – measures
 Electrochemistry – deals with the interrelation between electrical and chemical effects. Few
common examples of this topic are batteries and fuel cells, which convert chemical energy to
electrical energy.
 Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) - a complex electrochemical technique used to
characterize the behavior of an electrochemical system and therefore allows analyzing several
phenomena inside the cell and evaluating the system losses. It measures the resistance and
capacitance properties of a material via application of a sinusoidal AC excitation signal of c.
 Electrode Potential – measure of the energy per unit charge which is available from the
oxidation/reduction reactions to drive the reactions. It is also the potential difference developed
when an electrode of an element is placed in a solution containing ions of that element.
 Electrolyte – substance that produces an electrically conducting solution when dissolved in a
polar solvent such as water. They are the catalysts in the conduction of electrical currents. These
can be sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, magnesium, and phosphate ions.
 Galvanostatic charge-discharge - the opposite of cyclic voltammetry, where the cycle of charging
and discharging is observed between two specified voltage points at a constant applied current.
This is also used to measure corrosion rate and electrochemical reactions.
 Morphology – study of the form and structure of animals and plants. In this case, our study deals
with the surface morphology of the activated carbon. With the aid of the scanning electron
microscope, we can then observe the porosity of the activated carbon i.e. how small or large the
pores are.
 Nanoporous – meaning the pores are so small.
 Oyster Mushroom – the fungus we used to derive AC from. Based on past literature, related
species of the oyster mushroom (Plerotus ostreatus) such as Plerotus eryngii have been utilized
as potential supercapacitors due to its pore size.
 Pore size – how large the holes are. This can determine the AC’s adsorption capabilities.
 Porosity – quality of being porous or full of tiny holes.
 Precursor – chemical transformed into another compound, as in the course of a chemical
reaction, and therefore precedes that compound in the synthetic pathway. In the case of
biology, one example could be that stem cells are the precursors of RBCs and WBCs.
 Reagent – substance used in chemical analysis or other reactions
 Resistance – opposition offered by a body or substance to the passage through it of a steady
electric current. In other words, it simply resists current to pass through fully. It is measured in
Ohms (Ω)
 Supercapacitor - Supercapacitors are energy storage devices with charge/discharge time in the
domain of seconds (J. Piwek et al., 2016).
  Voltage – the force of an electrical current measured in volts (V)

What is the independent variable of our study? What is the dependent variable?

The independent variable of our study is the electrochemical properties i.e. treatments and the
tests while the dependent variable is the viability of the activated carbon derived from oyster mushroom
as a potential supercapacitor.

What is the difference between a battery and a capacitor?

Short answer: Batteries give off energy much slower than capacitors. Capacitors can’t also store energy
in a long period of time.

Explanation: It lies in their power and energy densities. Power density measures how much power an
electrochemical object gives off in a certain area, while energy density measures how much energy it
can contain in a given area. To give you an insight, batteries have large energy densities but low power
densities while capacitors have large power densities but low energy densities. Batteries are known to
store energy in a long period of time. It can be incurred that capacitors can give off large amounts of
power in a given time but can’t store that much energy.