A number of companies are developing advanced supercapacitors in the hopes of replacing or augmenting lithium-ion batteries:
Dr Donald Highgate, director of research at Superdielectrics Ltd, says a material he originally developed for soft contact lenses is also surprisingly good at holding an electrostatic field. [...] Dr Highgate is working with Bristol and Surrey universities to develop supercapacitors using the new polymer and hopes that they could eventually rival, or even surpass, lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries - so long as they manage to replicate prototype performance on a large scale.
[...] Taavi Madiberk, chief executive and co-founder of Skeleton Technologies, a supercapacitor maker based in Estonia, Germany and Finland, says his products incorporate layers of graphene - a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice - and other carbon-based materials in its supercapacitors. These layers have a huge surface area - just 1g of graphene can cover 2,000 sq m, says Mr Madiberk. This allows them to hold on to a lot more power.
[...] But he acknowledges that in the short-term, combining supercapacitors with li-ion batteries is probably the best way to enjoy the best of both worlds, particularly in electric vehicles. Ulrik Grape, chief executive of NaWa technologies, another supercapacitor maker based in the South of France, agrees, saying: "Supercapacitors don't store as much energy but their response is instantaneous. So a supercapacitor could handle acceleration and energy recovery under braking - taking care of the stressful part of a battery's life - possibly doubling or tripling a battery's life expectancy."
NaWa's technology involves electrodes made from "vertically aligned carbon and graphene nanotubes that can store the energy on the surface of these tubes," explains Mr Grape. [...] A Formula E racing car's battery, currently made by Williams Advanced Engineering, weighs 300kg, but this could be reduced by a third to 200kg, NaWa believes, without any loss of range.
[...] Of course, supercapacitors don't mean the end of traditional batteries by any means. Li-ion technology is still being improved by about 5-10% each year.
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(Score: 1) by milsorgen on Wednesday March 07 2018, @11:43PM (6 children)
I thought super capacitors were limited to very low (>3V) voltage. Have they overcame this limit and retained the long working working life?
On the Oregon Coast, born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday March 08 2018, @12:12AM (2 children)
You think you meant <3V. No, current tech is limited at 2.5-2.7V, due to the use of an electrolyte.(liquid dielectric)
However, the new developments hint the comeback of solid polymer dielectrics, which maybe will be able to handle higher voltages.
Given that the stored energy varies quadratically with the voltage, this is a big deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @02:51AM (1 child)
1F 5.4V unknown internal resistance www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/AVX/SCMR18D105M
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 08 2018, @03:17AM
= 2 x 2.7V in series in a tight package.
Otherwise, you can have 2.2F @ 16V (= 6x2.7V) [aliexpress.com] or 400F @ 2.7V [aliexpress.com] or 700F @ 16V [aliexpress.com] or whatever you fancy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday March 08 2018, @12:53AM (1 child)
Stack them in series to get higher voltages. You're not going to get 120V this way, but ~12-48V would be achievable. Since they drop in voltage so quickly (exponential decay), you'll need some sort of DC/DC converter no matter what you do to maintain voltage or current at constant levels (unless you're just dumping amps as fast as you can).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @03:13AM
if you stack them in series you dived the capacitance, unless you use diode to charge them in parallal and discharge them in series. a Cockcroft-Walton arrangement is sufficient
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Thursday March 08 2018, @09:20PM
Well, there's always EEStor [fyngyrz.com], which is (still... still...... still.........) trying to create a high voltage ultracap dielectric.
But hey, they're still trying, still testing, etc. Who knows. It's not like it wasn't a steep hill to try and climb.