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The Register reports
In a paper published at [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences] (abstract), the researchers claim capacitance of more than 1,100 Farads per cubic centimetre--or around 1,145 Farads per gram, which is about as much as they reckon you could get out of the manganese dioxide (MnO2) in the cap.
Using a combination of graphene and MnO2, the researchers say the energy density they can achieve can be as high as 42 Watt-hours per litre, which is getting close to that of a lead acid battery.
It's not much yet: the demonstrator pictured below from the UCLA California NanoSystems Institute is one-fifth the thickness of paper, however it can hold charge long enough to power the demo LED overnight.
That, the university claims, beats a thin-film lithium battery on a pound-for-pound (or rather gram-for-gram) basis.
Manganese dioxide is cheap and plentiful, and is good at storing charge--which is why it's popular in dry-cell batteries and alkaline batteries.
The combination of the MnO2 and laser-etched graphene--the secret sauce in all of this--can be produced without dry rooms or extreme temperatures.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday April 06 2015, @09:13PM
From the summary:
In short: Batteries might become lighter.
In short: Batteries might become cheaper.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by SubiculumHammer on Monday April 06 2015, @09:16PM
So an incremental improvement? Or would it represent a substantial improvement yielding a number of new applications? Would this be better at solar of solar energy? Or is this simply, cheaper, lighter, Tesla is very happy because now you can put more battery in the same vehicle?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ken_g6 on Monday April 06 2015, @09:33PM
The other thing about batteries is that they're not good at charging or discharging quickly. If you put a capacitor between the motor and regular batteries in an electric car, the regular batteries will last longer.
In theory, if these were the batteries in an electric car, you could charge them very quickly. But only if you could get the power to them very quickly, which requires large wires and/or another set of capacitors at the charging station to build up the charge to dump into a car's capacitors.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @10:11PM
> which requires large wires and/or another set of capacitors at the charging station
I suspect the wires from the station to the car would have to be bigger than fire-hoses if you wanted to charge at the same speed of filling a tank of gass.
(Score: 2) by sigma on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:59AM
So put them under the road at traffic lights and stop signs.
You wouldn't need to fully charge at any single red light, but over the course of a journey, many cars could be topped off.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 07 2015, @11:45AM
Worth pointing out is from a fire safety standpoint only an idiot would start a pump and walk away, so its important to pump a couple gallons/min while the owner stands there in the cold or 100F+ weather.
However, the standard for electrical charging is pretty safety focused with microcontroller monitoring of the connector and various temperatures and stuff, so plugging in an electric car and going in the building to take a leak or buy a 128 ounce glass of corn syrup soda or whatever is perfectly safe, at least WRT fire safety.
The very long term effect of electric cars is likely to be a move away from a dedicated charge point (required for liquid fuel environmental and fire danger reasons) and toward having your destination provide charging. So it seems highly unlikely that we will have the local electric company operate charge stations just like a gas station and infinitely more likely the local restaurants / bars / retail stores / businesses / hotels will have some kind of "swipe a credit card for a charge" deal. This kind of negates the main whine heard about electric cars of range, well, as long as your battery range exceeds your stomach or bladder range the car will be just fine.