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Silicon Supercapacitor Promises Built-in Energy Storage For Electronic Devices
Science_afficionado writes "A news release from Vanderbilt University begins, 'Solar cells that produce electricity 24/7, not just when the sun is shining. Mobile phones with built-in power cells that recharge in seconds and work for weeks between charges. These are just two of the possibilities raised by a novel supercapacitor design invented by material scientists ... that is described in a paper published in the Oct. 22 issue of the journal Scientific Reports. It is the first supercapacitor that is made out of silicon so it can be built into a silicon chip along with the microelectronic circuitry that it powers. In fact, it should be possible to construct these power cells out of the excess silicon that exists in the current generation of solar cells, sensors, mobile phones and a variety of other electromechanical devices, providing a considerable cost savings. ... Instead of storing energy in chemical reactions the way batteries do, “supercaps” store electricity by assembling ions on the surface of a porous material. As a result, they tend to charge and discharge in minutes, instead of hours, and operate for a few million cycles, instead of a few thousand cycles like batteries.' The full academic paper is available online."
Call me when a supercap has anything like the energy density - by any measure of cubic or weight - as a battery. Till then, they have only niche uses. I've seen various supercap articles that were about tech that was "About to change the world" for how many decades now? OK, sooner or later, they might...I'm still waiting, and I ain't gonna live for as many more decades as I've already been waiting. Till then, I'll drive my Volt.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
to provide electricity for my flying car, and my holographic storage disks too!
Dr. Edison's "Super Battery" plans have been stolen!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Still only about 1 % of li-ion batteries. On the other hand, lithium is relatively rare and silicon is dirt common.
Dis is da bomb. If only it wasn't 10 years away (and always will be).
I hate these kind of articles. If there's no release date and price what is the purpose. If I had a dime for every "breakthrough" that never resulted in an actual product I could pay off the national debt.
If I read the article correctly, this would allow supercap batteries to be placed on the chip die. This doesn't sound like much, but it would be useful in keeping DRAM refreshed if there is a power outage for a brief bit, or enough juice to dump the DRAM to permanent storage (a small SSD.) If the processor state can be saved as well, this would allow a computer to start right back up almost exactly where it was before.
Of course, this wouldn't be enough power to keep a modern day CPU like a POWER7 running at full tilt for any significant length of time, but it might be enough to get the machine's components to save its state and shut down cleanly.
Then, there are the obvious uses for supercap batteries. A buffer for solar cells that can charge the regular batteries at exactly the power they need is one example, especially if combined with a MPPT controller. If the supercap cells are good enough with energy density, they could even be the primary batteries, although there was a patent application with working prototypes I read mentioned a bit ago [1] about high temperature batteries with a large energy density, and these would be a great candidate as primaries, while the supercaps would be additional storage, a buffer for optimal charging, and giving the ability to continue charging for a little bit of time once the solar panels stop receiving usable light.
[1]: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1307/1307.1305.pdf
The thing is, there are many applications where space and weight aren't an issue, but lifetime and power sourcing are. For instance, I have lots of room -- going ten X on the space involved isn't a problem for me in any way, but it'd be awesome to have a reliable, high-power capable storage system to replace the batteries I'm using now, which (a) aren't going to last very long and (b) are severely limited by comparison in terms of the maximum current that can be drawn from them.
The real problem is just an engineering one: we need some standard systems to give us usable energy in standard ranges (12vdc and/or 120/240vac) from ultracap stacks. There's nothing hard about that, it's a market and demand issue, no more. Given the demand, designing the hardware is a doddle.
And of course it's worth noting that UC size is going down while power is going up. Most likely, at some point they will cross the battery line, and that's the time to buy stock in whatever UC company pulls it off.
Plus, instead of poisoning the environment with a dead battery, you can will your UCs to your kids. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Heinlein rests a little easier tonight.
No, I don't remember your name. But the memory mapped screen on a TRS80 from 1977 is from 15360 to 16383 if that helps.
The paper doesn't suggest that putting this device on the same chip as an IC with other functions is possible. But it does indicate a promising material.
This is still at the level of "cool effect seen at microscopic level". It's not yet at "experimental device built, cycled for many cycles, here are the results", let alone "prototype demonstrated".
There was a company, I think it was EEStor, that claimed they were building a Supercap that could be used to electric cars, I believe some Canadian carmaker (zep?) even licensed the tech, but the company never once displayed a working product, claiming that their process wasn't yet patented or some other kind of hand-waving. All very shady, and their press releases seem to be geared towards getting venture capital and producing nothing.
So the question: Is this a real breakthrough that will actually result in a real tech leap, or is this yet another bit of snakeoil meant to attract dumb people with fat wallets?
If Exxon Mobil or Chevron buys the tech, and then suppresses it, then it's real, we know that from experience.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If I read the article correctly, this would allow supercap batteries to be placed on the chip die. This doesn't sound like much, but it would be useful in keeping DRAM refreshed if there is a power outage for a brief bit, or enough juice to dump the DRAM to permanent storage (a small SSD.) If the processor state can be saved as well, this would allow a computer to start right back up almost exactly where it was before.
Of course, this wouldn't be enough power to keep a modern day CPU like a POWER7 running at full tilt for any significant length of time, but it might be enough to get the machine's components to save its state and shut down cleanly.
Then, there are the obvious uses for supercap batteries. A buffer for solar cells that can charge the regular batteries at exactly the power they need is one example, especially if combined with a MPPT controller. If the supercap cells are good enough with energy density, they could even be the primary batteries, although there was a patent application with working prototypes I read mentioned a bit ago [1] about high temperature batteries with a large energy density, and these would be a great candidate as primaries, while the supercaps would be additional storage, a buffer for optimal charging, and giving the ability to continue charging for a little bit of time once the solar panels stop receiving usable light.
[1]: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1307/1307.1305.pdf
The paper doesn't suggest you could fit these on the same slab as an IC; I'm not sure we'd want to either -- there are times when it's useful to be able to pull the plug; letting chips have control over their own power sounds like the beginning of the singularity.
Do I need to remind you that Goddard did not build a Saturn five rocket in his backyard on the first try but had to settle for something a bit less impressive?
It's a capacitor. The journalist has suggested what you've written as a use for it, but it's really a capacitor and has multiple uses, like the ones you are dismissing.
To be frank it would be a lot harder for to replace the batteries than the capacitors in circuits but I suspect the journalist wanted to put things in terms that looked simpler - most people know about batteries.
Looks like 200 Wh/kg is industry leading for widely used technology.
http://bioage.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4fbe53ef019b0033dc98970d-800wi
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
A few months back, I read about a wax heat sink that could allow processors to turbo to very high speeds for very short periods. But...
Unfortunately, dealing with the heat created by sprinting isn’t the only issue that needs to be resolved. Even if wax is up to the task, there needs to be improvements in battery technology before such a system would work in a portable device.
Intel engineer Steve Gunther told Wired, “if I can’t get the current out of the battery it doesn’t help. You need balanced solutions.”
Well, here's the technology that can help that.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
In fact, it should be possible to construct these power cells out of the excess silicon that exists in the current generation of solar cells, sensors, mobile phones and a variety of other electromechanical devices..
Not sure if they're making a comparison here or proposing an application, but wouldn't it be pretty spiffy if you had photovoltaic cells that stored the energy they collect and convert from sunlight, so it's there to use when you need it? Not sure what the leakage factor for a supercap of this type would be compared to current technology supercaps, you'd still have some energy stored for an hour or two at least, and I think that would be a game-changer for solar power.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
A breakthrough that could potentially eradicate the chemical battery? Does anyone actually believe that Duracell and AC Delco are going to allow that? And lets don't forget planned obsolescence. The tendency throughout the history of capitalism has been to make goods less durable, not more. This is a pipe dream, it may appear in a very limited spectrum but we will never see it in wide spread use and my guess some giant of industry is going to kill it quickly and completely. Nothing stifles innovation and progress like private industry and the profit motive,
Click to the article, and from there to the original paper. Look for Figure 4. Extract energy density of 5 Wh/kg. Wiki up "energy density" and extract super capacitors at 0.018 MJ/kg. Ask Google to convert 0.018 MJ to Wh. Google returns 5, so 50 Wh/kg.
So this new super device has exactly the same performance as existing super caps.
Power my phone for a week my ass.
Professor Goddard lacked the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff