Traditional batteries haven’t progressed far beyond the basic design developed by Alessandro Volta in the 19th century. But work at MIT’s Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) holds out the promise of the first technologically significant and economically viable alternative to conventional batteries in more than 200 years.
Researchers at MIT’s LEES Laboratory are using nanotube structures to improve on an energy storage device called an ultracapacitor.
Capacitors store energy as an electrical field, making them more efficient than standard batteries, which get their energy from chemical reactions. Ultracapacitors are capacitor-based storage cells that provide quick, massive bursts of instant energy. They are sometimes used in fuel-cell vehicles to provide an extra burst for accelerating into traffic and climbing hills.
The LEES invention would increase the storage capacity of existing commercial ultracapacitors by storing electrical fields at the atomic level.
The new nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors could be made in any of the sizes currently available and be produced using conventional technology.
Looks like a technology worth tracking — and worth nudging into commercial production.
That sounds great!! Hopefully this will make electric and hybrid cars more mainstream.
Let’s see how clever these MIT guys really are.
Will they be able to actually make something that can be used outside their Ivory towers this time? Only time itself will tell, unless they come with some crazy theory useless for several centuries :D3
aren’t capacitors extremely dangerous to handle? putting them inside electronics could be okay because they aren’t handled, but using them as batteries and would be like holding a charged bomb.
Tim
They are dangerous only if you stick them to your tongue when freshly charged.
This sounds interesting. I hope it pans out, I see great advantages for burst items such as cameras.
BTW: Camera flashes already use capacitors to build up a high voltage charge that is quickly released.