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Breakthrough In Use of Graphene For Ultracapacitors

Posted by kdawson on from the high-credit-limit dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of a one-atom thick graphene for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitors. They believe their development shows promise that graphene could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors. '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 one of the researchers. Two main methods exist to store electrical energy: in rechargeable batteries and in ultracapacitors, which are becoming increasingly commercialized but are not yet well known to the public. Some advantages of ultracapacitors over traditional energy storage devices such as batteries include: higher power capability, longer life, a wider thermal operating range, lighter, more flexible packaging and lower maintenance. Graphene has a surface area of 2,630 square meters, almost the area of a football field, per gram of material."

8 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. advantages of batteries by loshwomp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Some advantages of ultracapacitors over traditional energy storage devices such as batteries include: higher power capability, longer life, a wider thermal operating range, lighter, more flexible packaging and lower maintenance.

    By contrast, two advantages of batteries are 1) vastly higher energy density, and 2) the fact that they exist.

    1. Re:advantages of batteries by OldMiner · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know you're trying to be cleverly ironic here, but you can buy ultracaps today. The higher power capability, swifter charging, longer life, wider thermal operation range, more flexible packaging, and lower maintenance are already there and have been for years along with the superior environmental characteristics. However, "lighter" isn't true yet, since the energy density of an ultracap is an order of magnitude lower than that for a dry cell. That's why a breakthrough such as in this article is such a big deal.

      If grapheme could reliably be utilized to create the sort of energy density posited here, any application requiring large amount of batteries (such as electric cars) would benefit greatly. Unfortunately, since capacitors are more prone than dry cells to losing energy over time due to internal resistance, this won't eliminate the need for dry cells entirely.

      --
      You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
  2. Re:surface area of a football field by Ihlosi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If 1 gram of graphene has the surface area of a football field, what's the surface area of a football field of graphene?

    One football field, of course. They're both units of area. Now, if you were to ask what the surface area of a VW-Beetle-equivalent of graphene is ...

  3. Here's the deal by Colin+Smith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Human resource usage expands to consume all available resource...

    That is the history of humanity in one sentence. In fact, it can be generalized to all life.

     

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    1. Re:Here's the deal by srussia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Human resource usage expands to consume all available resource...

      That is the history of humanity in one sentence. In fact, it can be generalized to all life.

      Agree with your first statement. The difference, however, between humanity and other forms of life is that humans increase available resources in order to be able to expand usage.

      --
      Set your phasers on "funky"!
    2. Re:Here's the deal by HungryHobo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We don't seem to have expanded to use all oxygen yet, we don't seem to have used up all the salt water, both are freely available to a great many people.

      Human resource usage expands to quite a high point but to assume it's infinite is a little presumptuous.

      It was assumed that the human population would continue to increase exponentially but in some developed nations we're seeing a birth rates drop below 2 children per couple.

      People multiply insanely when the chance of their children reaching adulthood is low, people try to obtain stupidly large amounts of resources when resources are scarce.
      Average resource usage may not increase forever. It'll probably still has a way to go but I can see the average leveling out at some point.

    3. Re:Here's the deal by lisaparratt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You think our atmosphere always had this much oxygen in it?

  4. Graphene's properties by JSchoeck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't worry that the Graphene layer would rip. It's a very, very strong material and the connections between the atoms are strong conjugated double-bonds.
    This is the same structure as in Carbon Nano Tubes and Fullerens (C60), just flat (and not cylindrically or spherically rolled up).

    The problem to implement Graphene based technologies is rather the synthesis of it, since it's not yet easily possible to create a homogeneous Graphene layer on a large area (i.E. at my Applied Physics institute they create Graphene layers that are not even 1 mmÂ).