Tunneling effect in Supercapacitors ?

[Hans Peter]

Tunneling effect in Supercapacitors ?

Hi everyone!

This is my first post … so please bear with me!

My question concerns the double layer developing within every supercpacitor / EDLC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_double-layer_capacitor" [Broken]

Considering the interface electrode – electrolyte and the ions which are only a few angström apart from the electrode I can’t help but wonder why the tunneling effect (electron on the electrode side tunneling to the positive ion on the electrolyte side) can be completely neglected.

Could it be that the tunneling effect is indeed responsible for the long-term self discharge characteristics every EDLC exhibits?

 

[ZapperZ]

But what level of potential bias is applied across those two? If it is a few volts, I doubt that there's any significant probability for tunneling current. If you look at the Fowler-Nordheim model, for example, you don't get any significant current until you are in the kV region, I would think.

Tunneling effect may still be present, but probably not significant enough.

Zz.