"Donkey, Ogres are like super capacitors."
Posted on 09/01/2010 1:34:35 PM PDT by LibWhacker
If optimized, this new technology could fully charge consumer electronic devices almost instantaneously.
Drawing on the layered design of tear-inducing onions, scientists have created a new super capacitor that is powerful enough -- and cheap enough -- to replace the larger, heavier capacitors used in consumer electronics such as computers and cells phones.
If commercialized, the new super capacitor could be fully charged in a second and, coupled to a normal battery, provide enough energy to power a cell phone for weeks or a laptop battery for days.
"If you open any computer, you will see a lot of these small, cylindrical round capacitors," said Vadym Mochalin, a scientist at Drexel University and a co-author on the new Nature Nanotechnology paper.
Capacitors, like batteries, store energy, but that's where most of the similarities end. Generally speaking, a battery, like the one inside your cell phone or laptop computer, stores energy chemically. That chemical energy is then converted into electrical energy.
Converting electrical energy into chemical energy and vice versa is a relatively slow process, which is why the lithium-ion batteries in laptops and cell phones can last for hours or even days but also require a long time to charge.
A capacitor is different. Simply put, a capacitor stores an electrical charge between two conductive plates separated by an electrical insulator.
Without the chemical-electrical conversion, a capacitor can be charged and discharged much more rapidly than a battery, last longer and weigh less. Capacitors are ideal for camera flashes and other electrically intensive consumer devices.
However, in contrast to batteries, a capacitor cannot store enough energy to power anything that lasts longer than a flash -- some fraction of a second.
Super capacitors, however, store much more energy than their traditional counterparts and are used to power small devices such as toys including model planes and helicopters.
In the future, super capacitors will be more powerful and replace batteries in more and more devices. Super capacitors or "electric double layer capacitors" store charge in a layer of ions adsorbed on the surface of carbon.
The new super capacitor began its electrically charged life with a literal bang. A powerful blast, usually hexagen or TNT, converts carbon contained in the molecules of explosives into a thin sheet of nanodiamonds.
The researchers then transformed those nanodiamonds into dozens or even hundreds of graphene layers, all nestled inside one another like little Russian dolls.
When the graphene "onions" are bathed and charged in an organic electrolyte, they can discharge up to 200 volts every second. If the technology is optimized that number could be further increased several times, said Mochalin. That would be enough to fully charge a cell phone, laptop or other electrical device almost instantaneously, and then dole out that power to a waiting battery for long-term storage.
The performance is excellent, and if commercialized -- something the Drexel scientists are working on -- the price should be right as well. The diamonds found in jewelry are expensive, but nanodiamonds are cheap. A few hundred dollars will get you a pound of nanodiamonds, said Mochalin.
"You need an electrically conductive material for a capacitor, and diamonds are insulators," said Olga Shenderova, a nanodiamond expert at the International Technology Center in North Carolina.
Additionally, by using a material that is relatively inexpensive, said Shenderova, the research could eventually lead to a whole new generation of super capacitors.
Not so fast.
Another needed key to wind/solar/tidal is approval to build high voltage power lines where they don't exist. Not likely soon.
"Donkey, Ogres are like super capacitors."
In the future,
Would have been nice if they’d put that in the title.
ZAP!
They should have used Joules.....
Didn’t you read the article? Diamonds are precious joules.
Very Punny
I think both of you have eaten too many scrambled ergs.
The writer and the editor must’ve left early so they wouldn’t miss happy hour.
Riverworld. Man, I’m getting flashbacks... Yeah.
“if optimized and commercialized”
That’ll probably be good enough for a billion dollar federal grant.
I wonder if that’s where Doug Adams got his idea for a towel being so important?
SCENE [Bart Simpson’s grandson returns to the present in a time machine]
grandson: “So in the future I tie an electrical onion to my belt, cause that will be in fashion, and head out to reach the ferry...” Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white electrical onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
Super capacitor’s power storage is measured in microwatt hours. Leveling the powergrid will require hundreds of megawatt hours. There is, however, some interesting research into liquid batteries where battery reactants can be pumped in and out of the cells in units measured by tons.
Pardon my pessimism, I have followed Eestor for years.
That being said, I would love to charge my phone in seconds.
That, and it’d be a way to make electric cars viable. For with a supercapacitor, the car can be ‘refueled’ in less time than it’d take to refill your gas tank.
Which would then allow for long-distance travel.
It just hit me, you could have a remote location with all LED lighting and have a truck/boat come by every month or two with your propane for cooking and electricity (via a massive super capacitor) for lighting, etc. In your yard you would have a propane tank and a big super capacitor. They’d use their “bigger” capacitor to give yours a quick charge, and away you go for months.
I wonder how many options this will give people that we have not even thought of.
Imagine, instead of a generator, your home has a large super capacitor that has a one week or one month charge in it all the time. And if your power goes out, it automatically kicks in for lighting, the refrigerator, etc.
>>“they can discharge up to 200 volts every second.”<<
At that rate, GM would run out of the darned things in just a few minutes.
>>Maybe S&W will use this technology to market a practical, hand held laser! <<
Seriously, you may be onto something. Good for air and land based vehicles as well.
Just as hard drives hold more and more data, imagine a capacitor the size of a coffee cup holding enough energy to power your homes basic electric needs for a day, a week or a month. It could also power “power hungry” weaponry such as lasers.
How about EMP? I could use a small charge focused from the back of my car whenever the flashing blues come on behind me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.