A Non-Toxic, Paper Battery / Supercapacitor

A user writes "Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a combination battery/capacitor by infusing carbon nanotubes and electrolytes into a paper substrate. The material can be folded, rolled up, or molded to any convenient shape with no effect on power capacity. Operating temperature range is -100 to 300 degrees F. One of the co-authors is quoted: 'We're not putting pieces together — it's a single, integrated device. The components are molecularly attached to each other: the carbon nanotube print is embedded in the paper, and the electrolyte is soaked into the paper. The end result is a device that looks, feels, and weighs the same as paper.'" The researchers haven't yet developed a high-volume way to manufacture the devices. They envision ultimately printing sheets between rollers like newsprint.

How hard are nanotubes to create?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I wonder how hard nanotubes are to create. Are they totally unnatural and that's why we don't see exactly this sort of thing in nature?

Power specs?

[strredwolf]

Come on? What's the volt/amp specs per square inch? "Oh we got a paper-thin battery that's flexible" is all fair and good, but until we get full specs on it, we can't plan on replacing our iPhones any time soon with Earth: Final Conflict style devices.

Pointless announcement

[Ancient_Hacker]

This is a pointless announcement. Anybody can make a capacitor with two conducting surfaces separated by an insulator. A good, useful, and economical capacitor is something else. Questions like capacitance, capacitance per unit area, capacitance per unit volume, voltage rating, Q, stability, cost per unit, testability, long-term stability and reliability, manufacturability, testability, structural strength, vibration effects, electromigration, overvoltage resistance, pinhole noise, dielectric drift, leakage current, leakage drift, stray inductance, longevity, temperature range, polarization, memory effect, moisture resistance, solvent resistance, altitude effects, and more are significant parameters. A useful new capacitor design would have to have some significant advantages over current designs.

This sounds very exciting....

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a shame that, if its fate is typical of most amazing technological leaps we read about on Slashdot, we will in all probability never hear, see, or use anything relating to this wonderous bit of technology ever again (probably due to some issue the researchers new about when they made the announcement, but decided to gloss over in rush to attract funding).

No such thing as...

[Anonymous Coward]

Power capacity. Keith Dawson, it's anything BUT that. Power capacity would be the ability to discharge. The poster is probably thinking of energy density. PLEASE READ THE SUBMISSIONS (and maybe try to understand them if you can) BEFORE YOU POST THEM ON THE FRONT PAGE.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Your purpose, Mr. Anderson?

[Stefanwulf]

Development and change in general is undergoing a period doubling. Not only are these new technologies amazing, but also the technologies they enable will also be amazing.

I'm trying to think of a period in human history when this wasn't true, at least for some area of the globe. Imagine when people first developed language, or writing, or math, or agriculture. Or more recently the printing press, more effective plows, the scientific method, the telegraph, or even steam-powered ships and locomotives. In each case the immediate practical benefits were augmented by an increase in the rate of future discoveries, either directly (as from the scientific method or writing), or indirectly (as from greater food production allowing a class of people who weren't subsistence farmers to develop, or faster travel allowing a more rapid exchange and synthesis of information)

Technology has never been changing as fast as it is now, but that's also been true for as far back as I'm aware...each generation just doesn't seem to see the trend of acceleration that came before them because it all seems so slow compared to what's happening just then.

Re:How hard are nanotubes to create?

[GundamFan]

Well, that's happens when someone takes the time to actually answer a question in an easy to understand and comprehensive way with links to more information if the reader desires it.

I'm glad "good behavior" like this is still rewarded in even a small corner of the internet.

Groan

[hcdejong]

It's bad enough we've got politicians and pundits hyperventilating over "think what the terrorists could do with [insert new technology/newly-public information/whatever]". Now I've got to endure it from /. posters as well? Terrorism is still vaporware, on the whole. Wake me up when terrorist attacks in the US become as frequent as, say IRA bombings were in the UK a couple decades ago.

Re:This sounds very exciting....

[fireboy1919]

Each time I hear about things like this, I become less and less impressed. You said it yourself: "Announcements", while all these breakthroughs are occurring in the lab, the We hear so much about nano-technology and all these brilliant ground breaking devices only to... never actually see them.

Of course, most of the time, those announcements are not sitting on a working prototype. They're trying to raise money for development.

This is a new idea in academia. That's a totally different thing. It's either a hoax (which, in this case is incredibly easy to prove, so it probably isn't), or it's really something that's useful. Hopefully it'll spawn a bunch of research into similar approaches for nanotech batteries so that eventually we have something really awesome that does this.

Re:Pointless announcement

[gone.fishing]

Research, pure or practical is what advances technology and indeed the whole human race. While very few products make it beyond the lab information learned may be applied elsewhere.

While I may agree that this particular product may never make it out of the lab perhaps someone will read the announcment and have an eureka moment of their own and be able to apply something that they learned from this research to whatever it is that they are working on.

I actually do hope that this research (or more accurately a product derived from this research) makes it out of the lab. I think there is room in this world for non-toxic, compostable capacitor-batteries.

Pointless? I think a better word may be inspirational.

Re:Groan

[MrNaz]

Well, the UK stopped it by finally engaging in bilateral talks and abandoning ideologically based military action. Perhaps, just perhaps, if we stop screwing the third world, the third world will stop trying to screw us back. Middle Eastern religious groups are a small subset of the people who dislike the west, you know.

Where's the numbers, fool?

[Simonetta]

Where are the numbers? As in how many microFarads per cubic centimeter does this material hold? As in how many milliAmp/hours? Without any numbers this is just science fiction, or a slow day at journalism school.

Re:Your purpose, Mr. Anderson?

[ColdWetDog]

Make a flying car.

Are you crazy? Have you been out on a road recently?

The vast majority of drivers can't handle two dimensions confined largely by concrete and steel barriers and you want them to be able to (try and) navigate in three dimensions? While diddling with their cell phones and bog-knows what else?

You're either on some powerful medications or you have a very high tolerance for pain.

Re:Where's the numbers, fool?

[forkazoo]

"So far, the researchers have achieved power densities of 1.5 kilowatts per kilogram in the supercapacitor version and tested it over 100 cycles of discharge and recharge, well short of the million or so typical for current commercial capacitors."

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but that just refers to charge/discharge rate, rather than storage capacity, right? I mean, they don't say how long it can sustain 1.5 kilowatts. If it can put out 1.5 kw for a femtosecond, that's naturally less significant than if it could put out 1.5 kw for a second, or a minute, or an hour, etc. The article didn't seem to have any reference to farads or watt-hours that I noticed.

Re:Specs and Space

[pragma_x]

You're pretty much on the money for this being good for space tech. I forgot about that particular cold frontier in my post. I guess you can paint me fixated on how the current crop of electric/hybrid cars will never catch on in places like Alaska, despite people painting them as some sort of panacea.

Anyway, the heater for the electronics in the Mars rovers(and by extension, probably some spacecraft) is nothing more than a boring slug of plutonium (or something else radioactive). The problem with dust collecting on the solar cells is a more of a mission viability issue when you get down to it: no sunlight, no power, no worky. As the rover has no RTG installed, once the solar cells get choked with dust long enough for the batteries to drain out, that's the end of it. It has nothing to do with keeping the electronics warm. :)

But your point is still valid. A "space-grade" battery would add a little extra insurance against freezing, for practically no extra weight. That's typically the point where aerospace starts to get interested in a particular piece of tech (lighter, better, cheaper), so maybe we'll see this developed by NASA yet (?).

Re:Groan

[MrNaz]

Wow. Seriously dude, just Wow. I don't know whether to be more astonished by your arrogance, your ignorance, or your incredible ability to mix the two.