Yes John, I goofed. And I agree that a capacitor nominally 1 F can in
reality have C=1.2 F. Thanks for correcting me. This takes care of my
"non-electric" energy concern.
I also have no answers to the described properties of new devices. But
some of our phys-L-ers are very knowledgable and can help us to understand
the situation. Here are my questions:
a) Why are the discharging and charging curves non-exponential?
b) Why do we observe "residual voltage"?
c) What kind of hysteresis are we referring to and what causes it?
As a physics teacher I am sensitive to all significant discrepancies
between what we teach and what happens in reality. It bothers me that a
unit called capacitor does not discharge exponentially through a resistor.
The factor of 2 in the effective R*C is very significant and I would like
to understand it.
I think that supercaps open a new area for student-bsed research; the
equipment needed to study them is available in most of our labs. I hope
this is not an end of the thread.