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A report from a team of scientists from the University of Central Florida (UCF) tells of how they have developed a new process for creating flexible supercapacitors that can store more energy and be recharged more than 30,000 times without degrading.
Scientists have been studying the use of nanomaterials to improve supercapacitors that could enhance or even replace batteries in electronic devices. It's a stubborn problem, because a supercapacitor that held as much energy as a lithium-ion battery would have to be much, much larger. The team at UCF has experimented with applying newly discovered two-dimensional materials only a few atoms thick to supercapacitors.
[...] [The] team has developed supercapacitors composed of millions of nanometer-thick wires coated with shells of two-dimensional materials. A highly conductive core facilitates fast electron transfer for fast charging and discharging. And uniformly coated shells of two-dimensional materials yield high energy and power densities.
[...] Supercapacitors that use the new materials could be used in phones and other electronic gadgets, and electric vehicles that could benefit from sudden bursts of power and speed. And because they're flexible, it could mean a significant advancement in wearable tech, as well.
Although not yet commercially ready, the team has been working with UCF's Office of Technology Transfer to patent the new process.
The full journal article in ACS Nano is paywalled but the abstract is available,
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday November 23 2016, @07:40PM
> A Phone that Charges in Seconds
How much current does that imply? Can I use the Telsa's plug or do we need yet another kind of socket?
(admittedly, enough "seconds" is hours)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:16PM
The Google Pixel XL apparently has a 3450 mAh battery; a 15 A current could charge a device of that capacity in 3450/15000 hours (13 minutes and 48 seconds). So, to charge a phone in seconds, you'd need a damn high current that nobody will ever have.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:27PM
It is low voltage, so it's not impossible to generate that much current at home. But those connectors ain't gonna fit no 8mm phone, unless you use the surface of the phone's back and do some pretty impressive power layouts.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Wednesday November 23 2016, @10:51PM
You left out volts.
13m 48s @ 1V
@5V it's 1/5th the time.
@12V it's 1/12th ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @11:30PM
Nope. Current is all that matters; it's all that my argument depends on.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:55PM
Watts = Volts * Amps
At 100W (ie, a single bright incandescent bulb) you'd get 500mAh per minute into that battery -- 100W / 3.3V = 0.5mAh. Meaning six and a half minutes to a full charge.
At the same current as a standard refrigerator (~1200W), you could charge that battery in thirty seconds.
At the same current as an electric oven (~8000W) it'd charge in five seconds.
Are you telling me nobody could possibly own an electric oven or refrigerator? Surprisingly, many homes have both, and can even use both at the same time without anything blowing up! ;) That "damn high current that nobody will ever have" is already available in pretty much any home with electricity. Although charging the phone in under 30 seconds is gonna blow some fuses for some users unless you can find a way to intelligently back off the power consumption or something.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday November 23 2016, @10:20PM
Umm... I believe the TFA is talking about using supercapacitors to power devices like your phone... not batteries. For consumers I suppose "battery" just mean whatever that can store power to be used by their devices to play Pokemon Go that needs to be plugged for refill when it runs low.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday November 24 2016, @12:20AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supercapacitors-vs-batteries-chart.png
Some modern batteries have greater power density (the feature that capacitors are desireable for) than older supercapacitors.
And some modern supercapacitors have greater energy density (the feature that batteries are desireable for) than older batteries.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by anotherblackhat on Thursday November 24 2016, @05:01PM
... some modern supercapacitors have greater energy density (the feature that batteries are desireable for) than older batteries.
I'm unaware of any, do you have a link?
The best supercapacitor I know of has an energy density of 11.3 Joules/gram (3 Watt hours / kilogram)
Carbon-zinc batteries are close to the worst battery in terms of energy density at 130 J/g (36 Wh/kg) - still an order of magnitude better.
Alkaline batteries are 110 Wh/kg, and lithium-ion are around 130 Wh/kg.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday November 27 2016, @07:09PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves