Surface of the nanotube-enhanced capacitor electrode sheet.
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| Science & Technology |
| Super Battery - A nano-tech enhanced capacitor with the storage of a battery |
| 2006-06-10 |
| Ever wish you could charge your cellphone or laptop in a few seconds rather than hours? As this ScienCentral News video explains, researchers at MIT are developing a battery that could do just that, and also might never need to be replaced. [..] They turned to the capacitor, which was invented nearly 300 years ago. Schindall explains, "We made the connection that perhaps we could take an old product, a capacitor, and use a new technology, nanotechnology, to make that old product in a new way." Rechargable and disposable batteries use a chemical reaction to produce energy. "That's an effective way to store a large amount of energy," he says, "but the problem is that after many charges and discharges ... the battery loses capacity to the point where the user has to discard it." But capacitors contain energy as an electric field of charged particles created by two metal electrodes. Capacitors charge faster and last longer than normal batteries. The problem is that storage capacity is proportional to the surface area of the battery's electrodes, so even today's most powerful capacitors hold 25 times less energy than similarly sized standard chemical batteries. The researchers solved this by covering the electrodes with millions of tiny filaments called nanotubes. Each nanotube is 30,000 times thinner than a human hair. Similar to how a thick, fuzzy bath towel soaks up more water than a thin, flat bed sheet, the nanotube filaments on increase the surface area of the electrodes and allow the capacitor to store more energy. Schindall says this combines the strength of today's batteries with the longevity and speed of capacitors. "It could be recharged many, many times perhaps hundreds of thousands of times, and ... it could be recharged very quickly, just in a matter of seconds rather than a matter of hours," he says. This technology has broad practical possibilities, affecting any device that requires a battery. Schindall says, "Small devices such as hearing aids that could be more quickly recharged where the batteries wouldn't wear out; up to larger devices such as automobiles where you could regeneratively re-use the energy of motion and therefore improve the energy efficiency and fuel economy." Schindall thinks hybrid cars would be a particularly popular application for these batteries, especially because current hybrid batteries are expensive to replace. [..] Drawings and photos + more story at link. This could be the lightweight car battery |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #6 I once saw the damage a 25,000 volt capacitor made when it discharged all at once. I don't think the light table jockey that spilled his soft drink onto it will EVER drink a soda at work again. At least he survived with no major physical damage. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-06-10 21:56 |
| #5 Sniff, Sniff, and to think it only took 20 years to re-discover it - Yoo-hoo, Perfeser, do I get the "A" grade now??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-06-10 20:47 |
| #4 I hope Harris and Harris (TINY) gets in on this.... I'm in that fund for the loooong haul. |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2006-06-10 13:46 |
| #3 Anonymoose, Current and voltage regulators in front of them should take care of these problems. Imbedding some temp sensors inside with smarts in the regulator should solve heat failure just like the sensors do in your laptop. A $1 or less controller microprocessor should do the deed. That puts the problems you talked about into the software realm. These would be great for lasers, railguns and maybe stuff like UAV's too. If Ford's angle works for autos we could have quick charge electric stations (maybe even with small PBRs in remote ones) to quickly charge an auto as fast (or faster) then you currently fill it with gas... (imagine an electrified slot car track zip on it for a few feet without slowing down and you are re-charged!) At that point dumpping the oil based and mid-east linked current system looks real promising! Oh and that distructive discharge if it was too quick... some folks here could make ideal "dial a yield" small bombs out of it with an emf punch! |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-06-10 11:34 |
| #2 The devil is in the details. What you can do with such devices is based on what discharge curves they can produce. As an analogy, think of flashlight batteries. They give off just enough current over time to run a flashlight. But you can't force them to give up all of their energy at once, in a single burst of power lasting say, just one second. They can only discharge at flashlight speeds. For this reason, you may not be able to use such capacitors for high current uses, like an electric car. The current required might burn up the capacitor. Another problem is current regulation. Many applications need constant, not fluctuating current to operate properly. Again, comparing with the battery, the current provided is almost straight line until the battery is exhausted. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-06-10 11:18 |
| #1 Surface of the nanotube-enhanced capacitor electrode sheet. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-06-10 10:07 |