supercapacitors tagged posts

New study finds ‘Sweet spot’ for Length of Yarn-shaped Supercapacitors

Yarn-shaped supercapacitors created by NC State researchers in the Wilson College of Textiles
Yarn-shaped supercapacitors created by NC State researchers in the Wilson College of Textiles. Photo courtesy of Nanfei He, NC State University.

As interest in wearable technology has surged, research into creating energy-storage devices that can be woven into textiles has also increased. Researchers at North Carolina State University have now identified a “sweet spot” at which the length of a threadlike energy storage technology called a “yarn-shaped supercapacitor” (YSC) yields the highest and most efficient flow of energy per unit length.

“When it comes to the length of the YSC, it’s a tradeoff between power and energy,” said Wei Gao, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science at NC State.

“It’s not only...

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Supercapacitors challenge Batteries

graphene hybrid

Powerful graphene hybrid material for highly efficient supercapacitors. A team working with Roland Fischer, Professor of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry at the Technical University Munich (TUM) has developed a highly efficient supercapacitor. The basis of the energy storage device is a novel, powerful and also sustainable graphene hybrid material that has comparable performance data to currently utilized batteries.

Usually, energy storage is associated with batteries and accumulators that provide energy for electronic devices. However, in laptops, cameras, cellphones or vehicles, so-called supercapacitors are increasingly installed these days.

Unlike batteries they can quickly store large amounts of energy and put it out just as fast...

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Supercapacitors Turbocharged by Laxatives

Illustration of detergent-like ionic liquids on an electrode surfaceXianwen Mao/Massachusetts Institute of Technology

An international team of scientists, including a professor of chemistry from the University of Bristol, has worked out a way to improve energy storage devices called supercapacitors, by designing a new class of detergents chemically related to laxatives. Their paper, published in the journal Nature Materials, explains why these detergents, called ionic liquids, are better electrolytes than current materials and can improve supercapacitors.

Currently, aqueous and organic electrolytes are used, but more recently, researchers and manufacturers have been testing ionic liquids instead to boost performance...

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Rapid Cellphone Charging getting closer to reality

Decorating Graphene Oxide with Ionic Liquid Nanodroplets: An Approach Leading to Energy-Dense, High-Voltage Supercapacitors

Decorating Graphene Oxide with Ionic Liquid Nanodroplets: An Approach Leading to Energy-Dense, High-Voltage Supercapacitors

The ability to charge cellphones in seconds is one step closer after researchers at the University of Waterloo used nanotechnology to significantly improve supercapacitors. Their novel design roughly doubles the amount of electrical energy the rapid-charging devices can hold, helping pave the way for eventual use in everything from smartphones and laptop computers, to electric vehicles and high-powered lasers.

“We’re showing record numbers for the energy-storage capacity of supercapacitors,” said Michael Pope, a professor of chemical engineering who led the Waterloo research. “And the more energy-dense we can make them, the more batteries we can start displacing...

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