Embrace the nerdgasm! Super capacitors advancing into the real world!
97 replies, posted
[url]http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/science/more-good-news-on-those-carbon-supercapacitors.html[/url]
A recap for y'all.
[quote]The recap: Graphene, a very simple carbon polymer, can be used as the basic component of a "supercapacitor" -- an electrical power storage device that charges far more rapidly than chemical batteries. Unlike other supercapacitors, though, graphene's sturcture also offers a high "energy density," -- it can hold a lot of electrons, meaning that it could conceivably rival or outperform batteries in the amount of charge it can hold. Kaner Lab researcher Maher El-Kady found a way to create sheets of graphene a single carbon atom thick by covering a plastic surface with graphite oxide solution and bombarding it with precisely controlled laser light.[/quote]
[quote]Kaner says that his lab is now looking for partners in industry that can help make these graphene supercapacitors on an industrial scale.[/quote]
[img]http://www.labspaces.net/pictures/blog/4e5466b7dc69f1314154167_blog.jpg[/img]
I for one have boarded the train to super-hypes-ville.
courtesy of ultra_bright
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtM6XJlynkk[/media]
Maybe this will replace the shitty batteries in electric vehicles
Sweet; this means better batteries, which means we can use battery-driven devices for much longer than we currently can without having them plugged into the mains. It could also mean better energy capacity for electric cars.
Does this mean that I won't have to charge my future phone thrice a day?
Sweet; portable railguns and shit
Does this mean we can hand-write in Comic Sans?
I wonder what it would feel like to hold a sheet of something only one atom thick. Apparently paper is somewhere around 100,000-200,000 atoms (what kind of atoms is paper, carbon?) thick.
dude, imagine plugging in your dead phone and seeing a progress bar for the "battery" go to max in like 45 seconds.
it's like batteries are going from 56k to fiber optics
My only real concern is that if this does become a reality, EVERYONE is going to be plugging in immediately when using devices with this included, and pull huge amount of energy instantaneously from the power grid. Right now devices simply suck it slowly, like a person drinking through a straw. That allows the power companies to compensate whenever there is a big power draw, because it's slow enough to divert extra power to certain areas in the grid. This though would be like dumping all the water at once, which is almost impossible to compensate for. We'll really have to figure out how to deal with this before this kind of technology goes anywhere, or we have the possibility of some dangerous consequences.
[QUOTE=ewitwins;39680185]My only real concern is that if this does become a reality, EVERYONE is going to be plugging in immediately when using devices with this included, and pull huge amount of energy instantaneously from the power grid. Right now devices simply suck it slowly, like a person drinking through a straw. That allows the power companies to compensate whenever there is a big power draw, because it's slow enough to divert extra power to certain areas in the grid. This though would be like dumping all the water at once, which is almost impossible to compensate for. We'll really have to figure out how to deal with this before this kind of technology goes anywhere, or we have the possibility of some dangerous consequences.[/QUOTE]
in a way you're right, but at the same time the small amount of time to recharge something will compensate for most of this.
I dont see how this will pull "more" energy than before. Its not like your plugging in your phone and popping a circuit
[QUOTE=Eltro102;39680005]Sweet; portable railguns and shit[/QUOTE]
Highly unlikely, these will have a fairly low dielectric withstand voltage like other super capacitors so you will only be able to charge them up to a few volts, railguns work best with a much higher voltage due to resistive losses in the coils limiting peak current.
[quote]I dont see how this will pull "more" energy than before. Its not like your plugging in your phone and popping a circuit[/quote]
Capacitors charge extremely fast since the energy is not stored via a chemical reaction, indeed most switchmode power supplies have a thermistor to limit current when you plug them in, otherwise you risk blowing fuses.
To assume one of these 'new' capacitors has a capacitance of 10F at 2V gives a total stored charged of 20C, assuming an almost perfect power supply the peak charge current can be as high as 2000A which will fully charge in around 50ms.
[QUOTE=TonyP;39680130]I wonder what it would feel like to hold a sheet of something only one atom thick. Apparently paper is somewhere around 100,000-200,000 atoms (what kind of atoms is paper, carbon?) thick.[/QUOTE]
Paper is made out of fibers, which are gigantic long chains of mostly C, H, O, N, etc.
[QUOTE=TonyP;39680130]I wonder what it would feel like to hold a sheet of something only one atom thick. Apparently paper is somewhere around 100,000-200,000 atoms (what kind of atoms is paper, carbon?) thick.[/QUOTE]
Quite a lot of carbon, from plant matter mostly.
Pulp mills turn wood scraps into a crude product, which is then bleached and so forth.
[QUOTE=AtomiCasd;39679940]Maybe this will replace the shitty batteries in electric vehicles[/QUOTE]
THis could replace EVERY battery, and depending on how many charge cycles they last for, you could never need to buy another battery again
[QUOTE=areolop;39680257]I dont see how this will pull "more" energy than before. Its not like your plugging in your phone and popping a circuit[/QUOTE]
the total amount of energy being used to recharge a battery would still be the same, but the time it takes to charge would be significantly, if not exponentially, less.
this isn't a threat to the battery itself since it will discharge at more or less the same rate as it was previously designed to do for a certain device, but this means a lot of power is going to be sucked up in the overall community power grid in such a short amount of time.
[QUOTE=Chryseus;39680273]Highly unlikely, these will have a fairly low dielectric withstand voltage like other super capacitors so you will only be able to charge them up to a few volts, railguns work best with a much higher voltage due to resistive losses in the coils limiting peak current.[/QUOTE]
but since they're smaller couldn't you have loads of them
[QUOTE=Eltro102;39680303]but since they're smaller couldn't you have loads of them[/QUOTE]
And to get the voltage high enough with a lot of them, you lose their super capacitance. Total capacitance of a series of capacitors is the sum of the inverses... So you need X number of capacitors in series to reach a voltage, and then X sets of X capacitors to achieve the same capacitance as 1 capacitor at that higher voltage.
Basically you'd need a fuckton of caps for that.
Also to people worried about power draw, just because a super capacitor can draw that much, it's not like devices won't include some sort of circuit resistance to limit the current draw. Common power outlets will only handle about 10-15A anyway.
[QUOTE=Eltro102;39680303]but since they're smaller couldn't you have loads of them[/QUOTE]
It's possible I suppose but you'd need a lot, plus there is the issue of ESR (series resistance) which would limit discharge current quite a lot, so end result you'd need a massive bank of them in series / parallel.
[quote]Also to people worried about power draw, just because a super capacitor can draw that much, it's not like devices won't include some sort of circuit resistance to limit the current draw.[/quote]
This is quite true, even a simple resistor does the job for limiting the rate of charge T = 5(RC)
[QUOTE=ewitwins;39680185]My only real concern is that if this does become a reality, EVERYONE is going to be plugging in immediately when using devices with this included, and pull huge amount of energy instantaneously from the power grid. Right now devices simply suck it slowly, like a person drinking through a straw. That allows the power companies to compensate whenever there is a big power draw, because it's slow enough to divert extra power to certain areas in the grid. This though would be like dumping all the water at once, which is almost impossible to compensate for. We'll really have to figure out how to deal with this before this kind of technology goes anywhere, or we have the possibility of some dangerous consequences.[/QUOTE]
Or it will be just like when someone turns on a freaking kettle, no problem.
[editline]22nd February 2013[/editline]
When I turn on my heater or set it from 1KW to 2KW the local power plant or wind turbines don't explode...does that surprise you?
What this REALLY does mean is that you only have to charge your phone for a minute now, and it will be fully charged.
I hope the lab gets investors quickly. It would be smart for major battery companies like Duracell and Energizer to get in now before their products are obsolete.
Thanks for the help guys, it alleviates my concerns, I guess I need to work on my knowledge of how electricity works :v:
Can it power the delorian?
[QUOTE=TonyP;39680130]I wonder what it would feel like to hold a sheet of something only one atom thick. Apparently paper is somewhere around 100,000-200,000 atoms (what kind of atoms is paper, carbon?) thick.[/QUOTE]
Certain layers of an onion are only one cell thick, I think
[QUOTE=RobbL;39681014]Certain layers of an onion are only one cell thick, I think[/QUOTE]
cells are many atoms thick
OP needs a video.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtM6XJlynkk[/media]
This is incredible. This is going to help so much in providing communications equipment to the third world. Imagine if you could connect a child to the internet and not have to worry about installing a large electrical infrastructure.
[QUOTE=TonyP;39680130]I wonder what it would feel like to hold a sheet of something only one atom thick. Apparently paper is somewhere around 100,000-200,000 atoms (what kind of atoms is paper, carbon?) thick.[/QUOTE]
pap-err, Graphene cuts all the way to the bone.
Don't touch the sides!
BZZZT
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