New "Super Battery" Energy Storage Breakthrough Aims At $54 Per KWh (cleantechnica.com)

mdsolar writes: BioSolar and the University of California, Santa Barbara, reinforced a previous international patent application by jointly filing applications in the U.S., Canada and Japan for something called a "multicomponent-approach to enhance stability and capacitance in polymer-hybrid supercapacitors." The BioSolar energy storage approach solves two core problems of conventional lithium-ion battery technology. One is the cost of materials, and the other is the limited capacity of the cathode compared to the anode. BioSolar has solved the cost and capacity problem by developing an inexpensive polymer for the cathode. "Our novel high capacity cathode is engineered from a polymer, similar to that of low-cost plastics used in the household. Through a smart chemical design, we are able to make the polymer hold an enormous amount of electrons. The estimated raw materials cost of our cathode is similar to that of inexpensive plastics, with a very high possible energy density of 1,000 Wh/kg." BioSolar's research also indicates that the new polymer enables batteries to charge and discharge rapidly while far outlasting the lifecycle of conventional lithium-ion energy storage. According to the company, conventional batteries drop down to 80 percent of their storage capacity after 1,000 charge/discharge cycles. When the new polymer is used in a supercapacitor, BioSolar's lab work has demonstrated a lifespan of 50,000 cycles without degradation.

Comments

The Dems are most pleased

[fyngyrz]

Trump has absolutely no chance of becoming POTUS.

He is pulling the uninformed and clueless portion of the republican polity. Solidly, reliably. The others are split on other candidates or not participating at all.

US presidential elections go about 50/50 with a small margin deciding the winner (that's why the usual concentration on only what are called the "swing" states.

But in this case, Trump can't pull sane republicans; and he can't pull democrats either. Swing voters are, by and large, the thinkers (few enough) among the voting public, and those also will not go for him.

Our next president, if Trump manages to continue to crash the republican nomination process, will be a democrat. Probably by the largest margin seen in many years.

Either the republicans get a sane, reasonable person representative of actual republican values in there instead of Trump, or they are finished this time around.

If you understand how the US government is structured, all you have to do is listen to Trump to realize that he does not understand how the US government is structured. He's riding a wave of drooling reality-TV fans in the primaries; no more than that.