Aluminum electrolytic capacitor

An aluminum electrolytic capacitor, usually simply called an electrolytic capacitor (e-cap), is a capacitor whose anode (+) consists of pure aluminum foil with an etched surface, covered with a uniformly very thin barrier layer of insulating aluminium oxide, which operates as a dielectric. The electrolyte, which covers the rough surface of the oxide layer, operates as the second electrode, the cathode (-). E-caps have the largest capacitance values per unit volume compared to the two other main conventional capacitor families, ceramic and plastic film capacitors, but much smaller capacitance than similar sized supercapacitors.

Aluminum electrolytic capacitors are divided into three subfamilies by the type of electrolyte:

Aluminum electrolytic capacitors with non-solid electrolyte are the most inexpensive type and also those with widest range of sizes, capacitance and voltage values. They are made with capacitance values from 0.1 µF up to 2,700,000 µF (2.7 F), and rated voltages values from 4 V up to 630 V. The liquid electrolyte provides oxygen for re-forming or self-healing of the dielectric oxide layer. However, it can evaporate through a temperature-dependent drying-out process, which causes electrical parameters to drift, limiting the service life time of the capacitors.

Due to their relatively high capacitance values aluminum electrolytic capacitors have low impedance values even at lower frequencies like mains frequency. They are typically used in power supplies, switched-mode power supplies and DC-DC converters for smoothing and buffering rectified DC voltages in many electronic devices as well as in industrial power supplies and frequency converters as DC link capacitors for drives, inverters for photovoltaic, and converters in wind power plants. Special types are used for energy storage, for example in photoflash or strobe applications or for frequency coupling in audio applications.

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