Nice incremental development for ultracapacitors

[kristopher]

New Carbon Material Multiplies Renewable Energy Storage


AUSTIN, Texas, September 16, 2008 (ENS) - Engineers and scientists at the University of Texas at Austin have achieved a nanotech breakthrough in the use of a carbon structure one atom thick that they say could pave the way for widespread installation of wind and solar power.

The researchers believe their use of the new material called graphene could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors, which now are manufactured using an entirely different form of carbon.

"Through such a device, electrical charge can be rapidly stored on the graphene sheets, and released from them as well for the delivery of electrical current and, thus, electrical power," says Rod Ruoff, a mechanical engineering professor and a physical chemist at the university.

"There are reasons to think that the ability to store electrical charge can be about double that of current commercially used materials," said Ruoff today. "We are working to see if that prediction will be borne out in the laboratory."

Two main methods exist to store electrical energy - in rechargeable batteries and in ultracapacitors, which are becoming increasingly commercialized but are not yet as widely known.

Ultracapacitors are used in energy capture and storage applications either by themselves as the primary power source or in combination with batteries or fuel cells.

Ruoff says they have higher power capability, longer life, a wider temperature operating range, lighter, more flexible packaging and lower maintenance than batteries.
Turbine at the King Mountain Wind Ranch near Odessa, Texas generates no power until the wind blows, making energy storage a critical issue. (Photo courtesy Cielo Wind Power)
With financial support from the Texas Nanotechnology Research Superiority Initiative, Ruoff and his team prepared chemically modified graphene material and, using several types of common electrolytes, have constructed and electrically tested graphene-based ultracapacitor cells.

The amount of electrical charge stored per weight of the graphene material has already rivaled the values available in existing ultracapacitors, and computer modeling suggests it may be possible to double that capacity.

"Our interest derives from the exceptional properties ...

Continued at: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2008/2008-09-16-091.asp

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Only one atom thick.

Amateurs. :)

[thunder rising]

2. I take it that graphene is the conductor ...what's being used as the insulator?

[TheWraith]

3. As with all nanotech, production is the issue.

As yet we've been unable to mass-manufacture a lot of the kinds of carbon nanomaterials we can make in a lab like fullerenes.