Graphene Supercapacitors

[Krynn72]

What if you could charge your phone, tablet, or laptop in 30 seconds and have it work all day long? That’s the promise presented in a short film titled The Super Supercapacitor that profiles the work of UCLA inorganic chemistry professor Ric Kaner, whose research focused on conductive polymers and next generation materials.
The story goes that while developing a new way to generate graphene — the same material used in carbon nanotubes — Kaner’s team made a serendipitous discovery: the new carbon-based material acted as a supercapacitor.
As explained in the short, batteries have high energy storage but slow charging/discharging whereas a capacitor has low energy storage but fast charging/discharging. But what we ideally want for our rechargeable electronic devices is high energy storage and fast charging/discharging, or in other words, the best of both worlds. That is what a supercapacitor delivers, and a carbon-based supercapacitor could replace batteries that contain toxic materials that must be properly disposed of.

Sounds pretty awesome.

 

[Vegeta897]

Neat. Too bad it's just a storage medium and not a way of generating power, which is what we really need.

 

[Remus]

Since we're talking about graphene.

EDIT:

Also, @ Vegeta:

How about this. Combine graphene super capacitors with high efficiency graphene solar panels, and voila you have cheap, on demand solar energy.
The two main problems of solar energy are efficiency, and a good method of storing the energy for times when the sun is obscured. Graphene solves both.

Ironically if solar energy continues advancing at this pace, it might make fusion energy obsolete before it even gets off the ground. However fusion reactors might still be useful for space travel though.

 

[ríomhaire]

I've heard of these before. Are the actually viable yet? I do wonder how easily it would be to kill yourself with one of these though.

 

[Maestro]

Neat. Too bad it's just a storage medium and not a way of generating power, which is what we really need.

Yeah but if we can wean ourselves off needing toxic, chemically unstable batteries that's a huge step in the right direction. Lithium ion, nickel-metal hydride, shit even alkaline battery tech have a lot of undesirable properties inherent in their total life cycle that a graphene capacitor simply does not have due to the nontoxic properties of the compounds used. Not to mention: a capacitor is literally immortal, which no battery has ever or will ever manage due to the limitations of the reactants involved.

As to power generation, Thorium is the future of energy generation.

 

[Remus]

As to power generation, Thorium is the future of energy generation.

Place your bets! Place your bets!

I still think the future of energy is in solar, not nuclear, but we'll see how things develop.

 

[Krynn72]

I think we'll see a lot of specific applications for solar, but I can't see it ever becoming our primary source. Nuclear seems the most likely as a primary source.

 

[Warped Dan]

http://www.starseeds.net/profiles/b...tic-harvester-that-gathers?xg_source=activity this looks promising too

can't find the original site but i thing Engadget had it

 

[Maestro]

Place your bets! Place your bets!

I still think the future of energy is in solar, not nuclear, but we'll see how things develop.

Solar needs big capacitors and even bigger batteries and lots and lots of silicon. It's an incredibly intensive method when it comes to the necessary parts. Same applies to wind energy. Both are highly distributed, high-sunk cost power sources that require huge maintenance budgets. Thorium reactors are totally incapable of melting down, are competitive with coal for (unsubsidized!) price, have minimal dangerous byproducts, and can fit in the same footprint as traditional methods.

 

[Stigmata]

But the sunk costs are a direct consequence of the technology being new and refinable. Solar panels in the future will be made of less material and cost less to produce per watt/ampere/whatever. The main thing holding solar back is the lack of cheap, high-capacity, high-output storage, which graphene supercapacitors should fix. With this, solar tech will likely outpace thorium-energy tech in the market to a point where thorium won't have much to be needed for.

If these supercapacitors actually pan out this way, and aren't gobbled up by a patent-trolling company/individual looking to either monopolise the industry or bury the technology to keep oil/coal/nuclear on top (see: the electric car)... well it'll certainly be exciting.

 

[Krynn72]

How much geographic space would a solar plant need to make the same output as a single reactor? I for one don't really want to see solar panels all over everything.

 

[Remus]

Solar needs lots and lots of silicon. It's an incredibly intensive method when it comes to the necessary parts.

Except that it doesn't. Graphene based solar panels have already been created. Silicon is not a factor anymore.
Price of production/maintenance has gone down in recent years and will continue to go down as the technology improves.

competitive with coal for (unsubsidized!).

There already are places in the world where solar energy is competitive with fossil fuel energy, unsubsidized.

Local, decentralized, solar energy is the future.

 

[Maestro]

How much geographic space would a solar plant need to make the same output as a single reactor? I for one don't really want to see solar panels all over everything.

My point exactly with the footprint I mentioned. A Thorium reactor could live in the carcass of a traditional one or even in the same place as a coal power plant. Solar panels require massive land area to function, and then you hit the limitations of the transmission lines because solar panels don't work well in cities. Let's also not get into the fact that in northern regions there is much less reliable direct sunlight. I can vouch that, 9 days out of 10 here in Milwaukee during winter, solar panels generate no electricity because we have them on my university's roof and I can watch a livestream of their power output. It is near to 0 on the cloudy days.

Thorium has low-risk byproducts, is abundant, is physically incapable of having a meltdown, and can match the output of modern 1000MW reactors in the exact same land area. Solar panels remove usable land from the possession of farmers, wildlife, and real estate. Gigantic fields of solar panels are an eye sore and are incredibly susceptible to weather damage and require long transmission lines in order to reach high-density population areas meaning they waste a lot of resources just to be used.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Place your bets! Place your bets!

I still think the future of energy is in solar, not nuclear, but we'll see how things develop.

Piezoelectrics, we will become the energy producers

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

That's so Matrix

 

[TechMongrel]

I can observe an increasing interest in the graphene invention on past few years. The main reasons for that are not only the energy capabilities, but loads of possible graphene usages. The graphene by itself is a carbon - and as a carbon it conducts electricity like a steel, but it's 200 times stronger (source Just an atom thick and 200 times stronger than steel and a near-perfect conductor), it's quite cheap to produce and doesn't require loads of energy in the production process (source Direct nitrogen fixation on graphene for low cost energy conversion as well as it can be used to restoring salt from ocean's water or for super fast data transfer (source: Graphene could deliver Internet speeds upto a hundred times faster

And as well it can be used as a plane built material or in F1 sports cars or on reverse-osmosis filter under the kitchen sink or as a super strong and super tight fishing pole as well as a long life high capacity energy accumulator - so basically possibilities seems to be endless - and that's why graphene is a wonder material of the future - and it might become as commonly and widely used as a steel is today

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Thanks wiki-sounding guy not linking to wiki.

 

[Vegeta897]

And not closing his parenthetic citations.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

'parenthetical', asshole

 

[Vegeta897]

No need to get technic about it. But thanks for being helpf.