Scientists Develop Graphene-Coated Silicon Supercapacitor

scitechdaily.com ^ | 10-24-2013 | Staff - Source: David Salisbury, Vanderbilt University

[DannyTN]

Material Scientist As distinquished from Material girl, who collects material, but learns nothing.

[LivingNet]

They move through the graphene as a wave. It’s a wave! The moment to applaud would be now.

[mdmathis6]

It may open up space travel in ways we haven’t dreamed of.
I could see these caps revolutionizing cyclotron research...smaller but much more powerful storage caps needed to store energy for the power bursts necessary to smash atoms...the size of the equipment needed being reduced by orders of magnitude.(reminds me of the condensor used to build the “Interocitor” in “This Island Earth”).

It is serendipitous irony that Carbon, whose Atomic number is 6, which is the basic building block of all life, may also provide the breakthru’s needed for unlimited clean energy production and/or highly efficient storage of electrical power.

[Red Badger]

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I agree! The possibilities a mind-boggling! As an aside,“This Island Earth” is one of my favorite movies. Saw it at The Willow Theater in 1955, when I was 9!

[mdmathis6]

This movie needs a serious remake, though I don’t criticize anything about the original. Another I like is “Forbidden Planet” which was groundbreaking as it influenced a host of directors and sci fi writers. One can see its influence on the Star Trek series, for example.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“Earth vs The Flying Saucers” is another good one!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_vs._the_Flying_Saucers

[Steely Tom]

That graph shows grapheme caps topping out at about 4.5 Wh/Kg energy density.

Just for perspective, the best lithium polymer batteries deliver about 250 Wh/Kg.

The power density for supercaps is pretty good though, as is their longevity.

[NonValueAdded]

Will Dr Pint name the consortium to exploit this nanotech “Pint-sized materials”?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Red Badger.

[ckilmer]

That graph shows grapheme caps topping out at about 4.5 Wh/Kg energy density.

Just for perspective, the best lithium polymer batteries deliver about 250 Wh/Kg.

The power density for supercaps is pretty good though, as is their longevity.
..............

I’m not getting this. If grapheme caps top out at about 4.5 Wh/Kg energy density....why are they so much more interesting/better/important/powerful than lithium polymer batteries which deliver about 250 Wh/Kg? Isn’t 250 Wh/Kg many orders of magnitude better/important/powerful than 4.5 Wh/Kg?

[PapaBear3625]

It’s not the energy storage that’s attractive, it’s the power density. Lithium batteries take hours to recharge. Supercaps can be recharged in seconds (or deliver their whole charge in seconds).

[Steely Tom]

Papa Bear is right. Energy density is a very important metric for battery technology; it could be argued that it's the most important parameter overall. However, for various specific application, other characteristics can override it. As mentioned in the article, the discharge capability (or power density) of supercaps makes them useful as pitch motors for wind turbines (who outside the wind turbine world would ever have thought of that one?). In that application you need big jolts of intermittent power. Without supercaps, those big jolts would be converted into mechanical shock loads by the generator. Not good when you have 75-foot-long fiberglass blades acting like rotating tuning forks.

Batteries generally have fairly short lives; this is certainly true with lithium batteries, whose high performance characteristics are offset by the fact that they're really only just barely stable from a chemistry standpoint. There have been a number of spectacular fires resulting from damaged or overcharged lithium batteries; as they age they become less stable; most lithium battery packs include little special-purpose "smart power" chips to keep them from exploding. These chips monitor their temperature, charge state, and other parameters to keep them stable.

For that reason, I imagine that supercaps might find uses in satellites and other applications where maintenance is impossible.

[PapaBear3625]

Another application for supercaps would be in hybrid cars, where you have a regular engine supplying power, and an electrical power source supplying additional power for acceleration, and storing power from regenerative braking.

[GOPJ]

Graphene - like transistors were in the 50’s....