TY  - EJOU
AU  - Narasipuram, Rajanand Patnaik 
AU  - Pasha, Md M. 
AU  - Badugu, Suresh 
AU  - Tabassum, Saleha 
AU  - Babu, Attuluri R.Vijay 
AU  - N, Bharath Kumar 
AU  - Tandon, Amit Singh 

TI  - Supercapacitors in Modern Energy Systems: A Critical Review of Materials, Architectures, Digital Twins, AI Integration, and Applications
T2  - Energy Engineering

PY  - 2026
VL  - 123
IS  - 5
SN  - 1546-0118

AB  - Supercapacitors are increasingly deployed as high power buffers in modern energy systems, yet their broader impact is constrained by limited energy density, fragmented testing practices, and incomplete understanding of lifecycle implications. This article presents a critical, method driven review based on a structured literature survey and explicit inclusion criteria, aggregating quantitative performance data for major electrode families (carbon materials, transition metal oxides, conducting polymers, biomass derived carbons, MXenes, and hybrid composites), electrolytes (aqueous, organic, ionic liquid, and gel/solid state), and device architectures (flexible, micro, solid state, lithium ion capacitors, and structural supercapacitors) under harmonized metrics such as capacitance, energy/power density, equivalent series resistance(ESR), cycle life, and operating voltage. The review benchmarks competing materials and commercial products, analyzes hybrid battery-supercapacitor configurations, and links quantified performance to application requirements in electric vehicles, renewable grids, industrial power conditioning, IoT/wearables, and aerospace, while emphasizing standardized testing protocols and lifecycle assessment as prerequisites for fair comparison and technology road mapping. Furthermore, the article examines concrete case studies of digital twin and AI enhanced modeling and control for supercapacitor based systems, detailing data needs, model structures, documented benefits, and open challenges, and concludes by outlining coordinated research and policy priorities in sustainable materials, device and system design, standardization, and circular economy strategies to enable reliable, evidence based deployment of supercapacitors in future low carbon energy infrastructures.
KW  - AI-enhanced control; digital twin; energy storage systems; high power density; micro-supercapacitors; hybrid supercapacitors; 3D-printed supercapacitors

DO  - 10.32604/ee.2026.076542