Nanotubes Extend Battery Life

nickynicky9doors writes: "University of North Carolina researchers have demonstrated they can extend battery life by replacing the usual graphite electrode in a common rechargeable battery with a nanotube. The TRN News article speaks to an increase in the amount of charge a battery can hold and so to an increase it's lifespan. Rolled-up sheets of carbon atoms, nanotubes ...'have twice the storage capacity [of] the graphite electrode...'. The timeline for production is put at 2 years."

Comments

Electric Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Doubling the battery capacity of today's electric cars(or halfing the batteries) may actually put them into the range where they will actually be useful.

I could have built an electric car from scratch. Well, some minor modifications to an old dead honda I had. But I got to thinking of the expense and hassle of the batteries and sent the thing off to Clyde's Car Crusher.

If I had al lthe parts, I could have had the thing fully functional over the span of a weekend. Maybe some other time.

Will these be expensive?

[mfarah]

It will be at least two years before carbon nanotubes can be used in lithium-ion batteries, Zhou said. "We show the potential but there are many practical issues that need to be solved," he said.

I can't help but think that manufacturing these batteries will cost more than twice than current ones, making them economically unviable.

Re:Will these be expensive?

[JanneM]

Not quite true. Even if they cost a lot more than ordinary batteries, there are a lot of applications where the benefits of extended life is just so great it's worth it. Just consider all the laptop-toting executive types out there in the world; they're likely to pay through the nose if it means the difference between being able to work during the whole flight or not.

What I'm trying to say is that there isn't a linear correlation between battery life and price.

/Janne

Lifespan, recyclability, pollution

[Spamalamadingdong]

I think we can take it for granted that we'll find easy ways of making carbon nanotubes in ton quantities. But their usefulness for making batteries depends on other factors:

• How many cycles can they take before they have degraded by, say, 50%?
• How difficult are they to recycle or destroy?
• If they are released into the environment, do they pose a pollution hazard akin to the fine asbestos fibers which are known to cause lung disease?

None of those things were covered in the article, and they'd be very nice to know. If the nanotubes don't offer as good a lifespan as the proton polymer battery, or you'd have a health hazard if the fibers were dispersed, these things are not going to be the panacea they appear from the article.

Re:Lifespan, recyclability, pollution

[logophage]

it seems to me that since carbon nanotubes are, well, pure carbon that pollution is a non-issue. carbon must be better than polymers. also, any work done on the effects of graphite/diamond dust would seem to apply equally well for nanotubes.

Re:Lifespan, recyclability, pollution

[p3d0]

You can predict the harmful effects of a substance based solely on the elements it contains? Wow, that's news to me. I think I'll go eat a bowl full of diamond shards.

Re:Lifespan, recyclability, pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

Also one can note that this discovery maybe be to little too late, for consumer batteries anyway. Atleast I hope so, for it would mean less pollution in our enviroment. That is if the development of consummer sized methanol power fuel-cells, or even better biohydro fuel-cells, takes it's last steps before mass production. Methanol fuel-cells would potentinally be fare less pollutant and more enegy efficient (w/ recharging).

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/02/1534 25 2&mode=thread
http://www.ftns.wau.nl/prock/resear ch/rene/biohydr ogen%202002.htm

Re:Lifespan, recyclability, pollution

[logophage]

yes, actually. you can predict if it will be harmful based solely on its elements (e.g. plutonium is considered harmful). also, you can predict its harmful effects based solely on how the substance will be used (e.g. granola in a bowl is okay; two tons of granola on top of you is not okay). since carbon nanotubes are not going to be sprayed into your lungs at any point during the lifetime/trashtime of the battery and carbon sitting in a trashdump leaching into groundwater is not particularly bad, i would say that pollution due to these nanotubes will not be high on the list of polluting sources in the world.

Re:Lifespan, recyclability, pollution

[p3d0]

I think you just proved my point. You can prove that something is harmful based only on the elements it contains, but not that it is harmless, which is what you are claiming to do.

I'll bet you a shiny new nickel that nanotubes will be found to be harmful to the environment somehow.

Next

[4of12]

So I have to wonder whether carbon nanotubes might better be used as capacitors than as an electrode in a conventional battery?

Re:Next

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, make a capacitor with vapor deposition, and make a block 1 foot to the side. How many millions of plates would that bee if each layer were 2 atoms thick? You'd have the power of a minor god that would fit on your tabletop.

How about a block 5 feet to the side? Anyone feel like doing the math? :)

Carbon-layering.

[Nyphur]

Well, with the carbon artificially layered like this, in concentric circles with tiny spaces between the layers, the constructions resulting from this would be an artificial circular graphite-type material. The extra electron storage would result from the sea of free-floating electrons between each layer, as in graphite.

Re:Carbon-layering.

[PhuCknuT]

Actually, the article says they used single walled nanotubes, bot multiwalled. So the electrodes aren't layered. The article doesn't mention the configuration, but the most likely way they are doing it is to have the nanotubes attached at one end to the electrode, making a sort of hairy electrode.

Re:Carbon-layering.

[Nyphur]

Ah, but the principle is the same. There would be a lot of free floating electrons between the strands, and also the electron flow is more coherent when flowing laterally along the tube compared to a solid mass of disorganised carbon molecules. No matter how much of a latice solid carbon may be, strands in a certain direction would allow for a much faster electron transmission. This could be used to make welectrical wiring more efficient but it would also make them more fragile.

Heard of soot? It's a health threat

[Spamalamadingdong]

it seems to me that since carbon nanotubes are, well, pure carbon that pollution is a non-issue.

Diesel soot is nearly pure carbon, but the PM10 class of particles into which the finest soot falls is strongly associated with hospital admissions from respiratory problems, as well as spikes in deaths. 500-nanometer (.5 micron) nanotubes sound like they're right in the size range where they'd be a serious threat.

Somehow I don't think that a solid block or sheet of polymer presents anything like the same threat from the battery being broken open.

Man, what cruel moderators

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes this is off topic, but to mod it down to -1 means you just have no sense of humor.

Plus, Its not like a 1st post, or hot grits post. The subject is at least of interest to most people that use batteries, since batteries and antenna's are the two features that differentiate mobile devices from desktops. Also, the primarily paper Pringles tubes are largely made of carbon, and could therefore be considered carbon macro-tubes.

Also, the EM waves traveling down the middle of the Pringles Tube is not that unlike the electrons flowing through the carbon nanotubes in the protoype batteries.

Please read the mod guidelines. The negative mod points are to be used sparingly. Getting something that even one person might find interesting (even if technically offtopic) down from 0 to -1 should not be high on your list for moderation.

Re:Heard of soot? It's a health threat

[logophage]

fortunately, the proposed battery doesn't superheat nanotubes and spew them out the end of an exhaust pipe. also, i find it unlikely the nanotubes would be in powder form; most likely there would be a bonding agent to ensure a constant surface area. can we say red herring?

Re:Heard of soot? It's a health threat

[Associate]

Does that mean that carbon nano-tubes are a communist plot to poison our children?

Nanotube-sized batteries?

[SVDave]

So I guess a nanotube used as a battery would be an AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA-sized battery?

Whatever happened to the "paper battery"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember a few years ago an Israeli company announcing a "paper battery" which in all respects acted and could be used (rolled, folded, etc) like a piece of paper.

It seems to me like these inventions happen and then somehow disappear.

Does anyone know?