I've been learning ultracapacitors recently and am particularly curious about the short-circuit behavior of these cells. I'm aware that it's not a recommended procedure, but my intention is to conduct it at very low voltages, for instance, at 0.1V. Due to current lab limitations, I'm unable to run experiments at the moment, but the specific cell I'm studying is a Maxwell 325F capacitor, featuring approximately 1.8mOhm ESR for a fresh cell.
I have a few questions:
Dongliang,
1: If you're not put off by kiloamp currents, I can't see a reason to be troubled by short-circuiting that component. Note the peak tolerable current - much higher and I imagine that damage to the plates or terminals could occur.
2: It depends on how much charge is in it. You know the capacitance, so you know the total charge at a given voltage. If you allow current to flow, you can write down an expression for the charge (and thus voltage) remaining.
3: The surface of what? The capacitor is a composite device - and the plates won't be thermally well-coupled to the outer skin of the device. The terminals are better connected (!) to the plates, thermally.
4: It depends on the chemistry of the electrolyte.
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