Batteries Smaller Than a Grain of Salt 68
An anonymous reader writes "Lithium-ion batteries have become ubiquitous in today's consumer electronics — powering our laptops, phones, and iPods. Research funded by DARPA is pushing the limits of this technology and trying to create some of the tiniest batteries on Earth, the largest of which would be no bigger than a grain of sand. These tiny energy storage devices could one day be used to power the electronics and mechanical components of tiny micro- to nano-scale devices."
non removable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple would still make it un-replaceable ;)
Seriously though, would it not be even more interesting if something useful existed that could make use of these batteries?
Re:Why not use in batteries for gadgets? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why not use in batteries for gadgets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the most efficient batteries are the ones that aren't a bunch of teeny batteries all wired together into a larger one. You have all that wasted space, weight, and resistance loss due to all of the connectors. If this scaled, it would be best used in larger batteries.
And, from TFA, they are trying to match current densities, not improve on them. Take your 1Ah battery and replace it with 1,000 1mAh batteries that take up the same space, and now you have to connect 1,000 batteries together to come up with the same 1Ah battery. It's larger, heavier, more complex to build, and doesn't last any longer. It's about as logical as trying to get enough rechargeable button batteries to start your car. Sure, you could do it, but it's gonna be a lot bigger, heavier, expensive, and more prone to failure than your current battery.
The sole purpose of something like this is to power very tiny devices where there's no room for a full-sized battery. It's not improving energy density or efficiency.
Re:Why not use in batteries for gadgets? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You know.... (Score:2, Insightful)
YEAHHH!!
Ok... (Score:4, Insightful)
They've got this already... they're called capacitors. Ok, they're not smaller than a grain of salt, but an 0201 package is really fricken small.
Do you really need the greater power density you get from a chemical reaction rather than a capacitor at those sizes? A capacitor is so much easier to fabricate and charge that I can't imagine why you would go for a battery. I mean, in order to charge a battery, you'd need a chip that is MUCH larger than a grain of salt... although even for a cap you'd want a voltage regulator of some sort.
Maybe I'm missing something here. What is this for? Nano-machines? Nano listening devices? Nano-trackers? Now that seems like the really interesting question....
d
Re:non removable? (Score:3, Insightful)
would it not be even more interesting if something useful existed that could make use of these batteries?
Light bulbs were pretty useless until there were generators. You can't have something useful that depends on something that doesn't exist.
Re:Sand or salt? (Score:3, Insightful)
The proper measurement is actually metric asstons...
SALT GRAIN BATTERIES USED FOR SURVEILLANCE! (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot could have gotten more readers with this headline:
SALT GRAIN BATTERIES USED FOR SURVEILLANCE!