Researchers Develop Super Batteries From Aerogel

greenerd writes "Researchers from the University of Central Florida may have found the most efficient (and most bizarre) battery material yet – 'frozen smoke', also known as Aerogel. One of the world's lightest solids, aerogel contains multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) which each one several thousands thinner than human hair. The researchers, Associate Professor Lei Zhai and Postdoctoral Associate Jianhua Zou, believe that this material could soon become the best energy storage material for capacitors and batteries."

Comments

Wish they made it cheap

[rolfwind]

For insulation as well. Several companies make it, but hard to get a hold of a decent size of it at anywhere near an economical price.

Hopefully this spurns added demand to find a cheap way to produce it en masse.

Actual Headline:

[Anonymous Coward]

Researchers Didn't Develop Super Batteries From Aerogel

its the holy grail

[Anonymous Coward]

demand is already ASTRONOMICAL

Numbers please...

[ls671]

As it is often the case with breaking news in battery related articles, I didn't find any numbers about the efficiency of this system in TFA. I would like to see a amazing break through in electricity storage but we have a long way to go still to match gasoline, so expect transportation prices to raise a lot as oil is slowly running out.

Energy density:
gasoline: 46.4 MJ/kg
Lead Acid Battery: 0.14 MJ/kg

http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Energy_density
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

Since accelerating the mass of the batteries raises the cost even further, batteries are even less efficient for urban transportation when you accelerate and decelerate a lot. We would need to bring back trolleys or another way not to have to transport the energy source for our cars to have something efficient.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus

Article is highly inaccurate

[Giant Electronic Bra]

First of all aerogels are a whole class of materials. They aren't 'made from carbon nanotubes'. Obviously the aerogel they are working with contains carbon nanotubes, but aerogels can be made from MANY materials. You can make them from gelatin for that matter, though silica is the most common material (and what the highly insulating materials are generally based on).

In terms of battery/capacitor applications those are pure speculation. Add to the long list of possible ultra-capacitor and/or super-battery concepts. You can hardly walk into a materials lab nowadays without bumping into some guy that has an idea for a super-battery made from X.