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Microbatteries Built on a Bed of Nails
nadamsieee writes "The good folks at IEEE Spectrum have a news brief about a newly invented method of creating microbatteries using an electrode that looks like a bed of nails. The method was created by a team led by Prof. Marc Madou of UC Irvine. IEEE Spectrum notes that 'according to the researchers, a battery using such an electrode can generate 78 percent more power than a stacked-plate microbattery of the same volume.'"
But does it scale?
At what point does this all fail? This might be great if you want to power an ant sized object, but what are the odds we'll see it in anything greater than the size of a pacemaker.
And, of course, if the process is similar to a chip, can we expect to buy it in units of 1000 for $300 each?
The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
That sounds impressive, how impressive is it? Can it be made rechargable? Can it be stacked to be a full cubic meter's worth? How many Kilo amphours would such a battery yield? I guess it is too early to tell these things.
I think it's the nature of high IQ nerdom. You tend to think the "other guy" is an idiot, because a lot of times they are. Makes you pretty egocentric I guess, even when the other guy is SMARTER than you or has pulled off something impressive.. Hecktapay when you got a large room fulla them...in meat space or cyberspace... ....had a sales job once, selling a new and improved technical product. Doesn't matter what it was now, what I noticed though was when I was selling to joe blow, it was normal,questions answers, sold some, sometimes didn't, but it was a normal deal. When I tried to sell to engineers they argued constantly about it, said they could do it cheaper/better/faster and yada yada yada. It was an automatic reaction they had, just the way their minds worked. Didn't matter to them, it is hard coded DNA or something. I would ask them why they didn't do it then (zero of them had ever made anything like it), and why did they bother making an appointment, especially when they knew the ballpark figures up front. they would just sputter then, pretty funny. Serious PITA sometimes. Ya, it was bad salesmanship on my part, didn't care, I made enough sales and was raking in the dough at the time. It was argumentive debate sport for me with them guys, nerd to nerd...
No, I don't like sales.. don't do it anymore....I did sell a few units to engineers, but I studiously avoided them after the first few times.
What about using a frictionless flywheel? You can spin it up using the electricity acquired during braking, or use some kind of clutch to transfer power from the wheels to it. After it has been spun up, use it as an electric generator until you need to brake again.
but it has no effect on the total energy output, so it lets you build devices that drain batteries even faster. Just what we need.
An NiMH cell can already handle a load of 2C quite easily. Do we really need more? If that's not enough power, it's time to move to a larger cell. What good is a PDA/Cellphone/Camera that only lasts for 15 minutes on a charge even if it is 10% smaller than the old model?
Jason
ProfQuotes
afaik this is used on some underground trains
but aparently this flywheels are too dangerous.
they need to be either massive or friggin big