SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Fnord666_
Oops! Scientists accidentally create new material that makes batteries charge much faster
Some of the most famous scientific discoveries happened by accident. From Teflon and the microwave oven to penicillin, scientists trying to solve a problem sometimes find unexpected things. This is exactly how we created phosphorene nanoribbons – a material made from one of the universe's basic building blocks, but that has the potential to revolutionize a wide range of technologies.
We'd been trying to separate layers of phosphorus crystals into two-dimensional sheets. Instead, our technique created tiny, tagliatelle-like ribbons one single atom thick and only 100 or so atoms across, but up to 100,000 atoms long. We spent three years honing the production process, before announcing our findings.
[...] The two-dimensional ribbons have a number of remarkable properties. Their width to length ratio is similar to the cables that span the Golden Gate Bridge. Their incredibly uniform but manipulable width allows their properties, such as whether and how they conduct electricity, to be fine-tuned. They are also incredibly flexible, which means that they can follow the contours of any surfaces they're put on perfectly, and even be twisted.
Perhaps the most important of these is in the area of battery technology. The corrugated structure of phosphorene nanoribbons means that the charged ions that power batteries could soon move up to 1000 times faster than currently possible. This would mean a significant decrease in charging time, alongside an increase in capacity of approximately 50 percent. Such performance gains would provide massive boosts to the electric car and aircraft industries, and allow us to much better harness renewable energy to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels even on grey, calm days.
It also means that in future, batteries could use sodium ions instead of lithium ions. Known lithium reserves may not be able to meet huge projected increases in battery demand, and extraction of the metal can be environmentally harmful. Sodium, by contrast, is abundant and cheap.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @10:04AM (5 children)
Much of that cheap sodium is locked up in an ionic bond with chlorine. Separating the two is quite possible, but then leaves behind a lot of chlorine gas, itself pretty toxic stuff.
So it might be cheap, but it comes with a bad side.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday May 13 2019, @10:17AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DYRPuDQtB_5Y [youtube.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday May 13 2019, @01:26PM
That chlorine you are talking about, can be put to good use: with all the asocial idiots peeing into our pools https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/03/01/1822207 [soylentnews.org], we can take plenty. Let's kill two flies at one stroke.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snow on Monday May 13 2019, @03:15PM (1 child)
Turn the Cl into HCl and sell it to industry.
(Score: 3, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 13 2019, @03:19PM
But then what will we do with all the extra oxy... oh, right.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Monday May 13 2019, @05:58PM
I'm doing my part splitting the two up. A saltwater pool for every home, higher capacity batteries and faster charging seems like a triple win.