Slashdot Mirror
Wood Nanobattery Could Be Green Option For Large-Scale Energy Storage
cylonlover writes "Li-ion batteries may be ok for your smartphone, but when it comes to large-scale energy storage, the priorities suddenly shift from compactness and cycling performance (at which Li-ion batteries excel) to low cost and environmental feasibility (in which Li-ion batteries still have much room for improvement). A new 'wood battery' could allow the emerging sodium-ion battery technology to fit the bill as a long-lasting, efficient and environmentally friendly battery for large-scale energy storage."
The rest of us call it charcoal...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the subject. The article is well worth reading. What's kept NA-ion batteries away is that their anodes only last 20 cycles. They solved the problem with wood fibers covered with carbon nanotubes, and these can stand hundreds of cycles.
Again, TFA is worth reading.
Now waiting for the inevitable "that article gave me wood" joke...
Free Martian Whores!
FTR, use of the phrase "[object X] is/are (a) thing(s) of the past" kind of implies that the replacement technology is already here and adopted en masse...
That said, I'm not seeing a whole lot of graphene supercaps for sale on Amazon these days; hopefully soon.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The use of wood is minimal and is only used as a flexible inner core for what is primarily a carbon nanotube anode. The majority of the battery is still inorganic materials.
(But, hey, one can't expect the first post to have actually read the fine article.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You know, it seems fairly simple to conceive of some kind of storage medium for solar energy that is cheap, easy, and environmentally sound. If only there were a way to gather up immense amounts of solar energy and store it in some medium that had a reasonably high energy density, was easy to store and cheap to maintain in storage, and where it was quite easy to extract the stored energy, that could even be stored as solid fuel. If only there were a way to easily manufacture such a fuel locally, at or near the point of consumption, and even better, without the use of harsh chemicals and boatloads of energy.
It's too bad nothing even remotely like that exists today.
Alas, the vengeful ghost of Sadie Carnot is sitting on your woodpile and whispering dark mockery of the efficiency of any heat engine small enough to fit in the places where we want electricity...
I will admit, that with a good steam engine and a few Stout Irish as stokers, my Analytical Engine does me good service; but spilling my cellphone's boiler down my collar last week was most painful.
Just ask the Romans how environmentally friendly sodium is. The citizens of Carthage would be able to tell you, if they were not all killed.
sudo make me a sandwich
'All' we have to do is increase their energy density by a factor of 10, get rid of leakage, and come up with a giood way to keep them from discharging all at once without exploding or degrading their performance too badly.
They may well get there one day, but not today.
Shit that article not only gave me wood but made it swell 420% over normal capacity!
Pity that your tube was so nano to begin with...
Ezekiel 23:20
This "wood battery" is an interesting concept, but this problem has already been solved by a team at MIT. They've been developing the technology over the last several years, and are now in the process of commercializing it. The first "commercial" prototypes are expected early next year. The details are in this video lecture by the inventor, Donald Sadoway.
This technology has great potential to revolutionize the way we produce and use energy. Worth a look...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Well, Amazon has graphene and they have supercaps, so just buy them together for a nifty savings. Also, given the clever and unexpected ways UPS can mangle a package, odds are good that eventually they would arrive fused into a workable single item.