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Power

Dust-Sized Supercapacitor Packs the Same Voltage As a AAA Battery (newatlas.com) 135

Posted by BeauHD from the small-but-mighty dept.
Scientists in Germany have developed what they say is the smallest microsupercapacitor in existence. It's smaller than a speck of dust, safe for use in the human body, and can deliver similar voltage to a AAA battery. Prior to this breakthrough, the smallest "biosupercapacitors" developed to date were 3mm^3. New Atlas reports: The construction starts with a stack of polymeric layers that are sandwiched together with a light-sensitive photo-resist material that acts as the current collector, a separator membrane, and electrodes made from an electrically conductive biocompatible polymer called PEDOT:PSS. This stack is placed on a wafer-thin surface that is subjected to high mechanical tension, which causes the various layers to detach in a highly controlled fashion and fold up origami-style into a nano-biosupercapacitor with a volume 0.001 mm^3, occupying less space than a grain of dust. These tubular biosupercapacitors are therefore 3,000 times smaller than those developed previously, but with a voltage roughly the same as an AAA battery (albeit with far lower actual current flow).

These tiny devices were then placed in saline, blood plasma and blood, where they demonstrated an ability to successfully store energy. The biosupercapacitor proved particularly effective in blood, where it retained up to 70 percent of its capacity after 16 hours of operation. Another reason blood may be a suitable home for the team's biosupercapacitor is that the device works with inherent redox enzymatic reactions and living cells in the solution to supercharge its own charge storage reactions, boosting its performance by 40 percent. The team also subjected the device to the forces it might experience in blood vessels where flow and pressure fluctuate, by placing them in microfluidic channels, kind of like wind-tunnel testing for aerodynamics, where it stood up well. They also used three of the devices chained together to successfully power a tiny pH sensor, which could be placed in the blood vessels to measure pH and detect abnormalities that could be indicative of disease, such as a tumor growth. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications.
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Dust-Sized Supercapacitor Packs the Same Voltage As a AAA Battery More

Dust-Sized Supercapacitor Packs the Same Voltage As a AAA Battery

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  • "smaller than a speck of dust, (Score:5, Funny)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @06:02AM (#61727663) Journal

    safe for use in the human body,"

    I was wondering how they were powering the 5g chips Microsoft put in the covid vaccines.

  • well, if you swallow a bunch of them fully charged, I wonder what happens if they suddenly discharge close to your hearth.

  • Voltage ???? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by weirdow ( 9298 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @07:07AM (#61727779) Homepage
    So what. pretty sure some chemist could make this in an atomic scale, What matters is how much power it can deliver.

    • So what.
      pretty sure some chemist could make this in an atomic scale,

      What matters is how much power it can deliver.

      Yeah, from TFA: "These tubular biosupercapacitors are therefore 3,000 times smaller than those developed previously, but with a voltage roughly the same as an AAA battery (albeit with far lower actual current flow)."

      • Yes. Voltage. What he is asking, and what I am, is exactly that current flow. We're asking Amperes, not Volts.

        • We're asking Amperes, not Volts.

          Even Amps is mostly meaningless unless you know how long it can be maintained. Delivering one Amp at 1.5v for 0.000000000001 seconds isn't useful.

          The important measurement is Joules = (Volts * Amps * Seconds).

        • This is a capacitor, it doesn't have amperage. It just has a voltage limit and a capacitance.

          Power is V times A. Amps is a rate. You don't measure amps with a capacitor, you measure the power. You measure the ESR, the effective series resistance, which when combined with the other numbers will tell you the short-circuit discharge current, but that is not generally useful, or how the ESR is used.

          Furthermore, capacitance is directly proportionate to the surface area of the plates. It holds the same amount of

          • Sorry, them comparing it to a battery kinda sidetracked me. I should've known better than to expect a journalist to know more about electricity than "it comes from the socket at the wall and tastes like pain".

            • Well, sure, but nevertheless, the reason it is interesting to engineers is indeed that the voltage limit is a useful voltage, which is also true of a AAA battery, and is why smaller batteries are usually not lower voltage than a AAA. AAA is the smallest voltage battery that is in widespread use, for engineering reasons.

              But if they said something like, "a supercapactior with a voltage limit over 1V!" they'd get less views.

              It is actually not that bad a headline; it tells the engineer what they want to know, a

        • Yes. Voltage. What he is asking, and what I am, is exactly that current flow. We're asking Amperes, not Volts.

          Exactly, from the quote I posted: (albeit with far lower actual current flow).

          Unfortunately I can't be any more specific since they are not.

    • Wait... you're saying that voltage and current both matter? And that the amount of time that both of those can be maintained is a far more useful figure than just voltage alone?

      Now only if we had units of measurement for voltage-current-over-time that the article could have used to be far more informative...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hasaf ( 3744357 )
        From the Article:

        "with a voltage roughly the same as an AAA battery (albeit with far lower actual current flow).

        From that, we can probably take it that the current flow approaches zero.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          ...and capacitors have voltage curves much shittier (from a power source standpoint) than batteries.

          It's as if no one has ever heard of a capacitor before, or that no one has ever made a small one. Miniature capacitors rated for "AAA" voltages have existed forever.

          • It's as if no one has ever heard of a capacitor before, or that no one has ever made a small one. Miniature capacitors rated for "AAA" voltages have existed forever.

            This is not about capacitors generally, but supercapacitors. Supercapacitors have a very high capacitance. This means they have very large plates in a very small volume. The specific materials involved are such that it is difficult to increase the voltage limit, which requires increasing the distance between the plates. Each combination of materials you use for a capacitor will have different limits of how far apart you can easily manufacture the plates. Regular capacitors use materials that are easy to var

        • From that, we can probably take it that the current flow approaches zero.

          The maximum possible capacity of a capacitor is based on the size of the plates, and the distance between them. Basic physics.

          A practical capacitor will have efficiencies below 1, so it will be less, never more.

          A dust-sized capacitor always has a current flow that approaches zero, you don't need other details of the article to tell you that.

          This article is about the voltage limit of this technology. Everything else you can easily change by changing the physical dimensions of the capacitor that you build usi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        I believe it's toaster-oven hours.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Voltage does matter for extremely small devices inside the body. Sure you can increase the voltage in various ways but they all take up space. If you can get enough voltage to run off directly it's very useful.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "Sure you can increase the voltage in various ways but they all take up space."

        Sure, you can increase the power and energy in various ways too but they all take up space. These are also critical "for extremely small devices inside the body" and how is this addressed? Voltage alone is meaningless.

        Also, voltage from a capacitor continuously diminishes as it discharges, meaning that the device must be designed to operate over a wide voltage range. Because of this, your point is moot.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Have a read of the paper, it explains all that. It's mostly for temporary medical implants.

    • AAA battery is a size and not even a voltage, I guess saying “about a volt” is too scary. If we are going arcane why not all in and just say ‘a cluster o these lil’ guys would really tingle your tongue!’.

      • AAA battery is a size and not even a voltage,

        At least not currently. But AAA, AAAA, AA, A(IEC R23), B(IEC R12), C, D, F, N, and the now obsolete No. 6, and early-radio box-style A all started out as single-cell carbon-zinc cells with a nominal voltage of 1.5V.

        Then alkaline came out - also at 1.5V nominal but more amp-hours (and other benefits) and was manufactured in most of the same form-factors (both single-cell and multicell-battery) as a drop-in replacement. So the cell size still implied the voltage.

    • Just dropped in to make sure there would be a thousand comments to the effect of, "so what, a static electricity spark on my finger has 5000V!"
    • I hate journalists. Nothing differentiates the voltage of AAA vs AA vs C vs D. What matters is the chemical makeup of the battery medium. The AAA form factor has a variety of nominal voltages depending on the chemistry.

      Chemistry, IEC name for aaa size, nominal voltage
      Zinc-carbon / zinc-chloride, R03, 1.5v
      Alkaline, LR03, 1.5v
      Li-FeS2, FR03, 1.5v
      NiCd, KR03, 1.25v
      NiMH, HR03, 1.25v
      Li-ion, 10440, 3.7v
      NiZn, ZR03, 1.65v

      Given that AA is one of the most prolific battery shapes in production, the author sh

    • This.

      I was gonna ask "how about the amps?"

      Because it matters little that you can deliver those 3Volts my circuit would need, but only have half a micro-Ah of juice to deliver that's barely enough to fuel it in sleep mode for a second or two, let alone when it was actually supposed to do something relevant.

  • No mention of it but I don't think many people would want this hanging around in their body to potentially get lodged in some organ and potentially cause problems. Or if it gets used in disposable devices it'll be more micropollution in the enviroment.

    • Forget lodged in an organ, how about identified by the body and triggering s cascade clotting effect. Like those small arteries and veins that supply the heart muscle with Oxygen and nutrients so that it can circulate the rest of the blood.
  • Voltage is more like pressure. We know a tiny needle point pushed by hand can create more pressure than the pressure inside tires or pressure applied to the road by an 18 wheeler.
    • Don’t be silly, battery capacity is measured in amp hours, obviously the bigger amp hours are the more current and thus more electricity! Voltage is just what brands and chargers it’s compatible with, that doesn't matter. What, you think I’m stupid or somethin?
    • Im not so sure the force over area equation is the one your looking for. Voltage, ie potential difference between two nodes, would closer align with fluid pressure and headloss in a system driven by centrifugal non-positive displacement pump.
  • just think what a cup full of that stuff could do

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by freax ( 80371 )

      Something similar to what a Stun gun does, I guess. There isn't much energy in the dust capacitors. Just voltage. But yeah, I guess it will knock down a criminal,

      • instead of painball guns, dustball guns, a painball gun to shoot the dustballs might be like a wireless tazer

  • You can say 1.5V here. (Score:3)

    by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @07:17AM (#61727809)

    I hope.

  • Why stop there? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ThumpBzztZoom ( 6976422 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @07:29AM (#61727837)

    If they keep working at it, they expect they will soon have it producing as much voltage as a "AA" battery, but doubt the technology will ever advance as far to reach the voltage of a "D" battery.

    A similar group has claimed that by connecting 8 of these, they will be able to reach to voltage of a car battery, but these claims have not been published.

    • Voltage is a meaningless. You can rub a plastic rod with a piece of cloth and product a million volts in the comfort of your own living room. But your charged plastic bit has extremely low energy density.

      What would be more interesting is knowing how much energy the device can store, and how much current it can deliver.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by piojo ( 995934 )

        Voltage matters for applications that depend on voltage. But I can think of only a few: switching a FET, making an electrical arc, acting as a reference to compare to another voltage, accidentally destroying chips.

        • Q=CV

          If the capacitor should boast about anything it's a low voltage, not a high one for any given amount of charge storage

      • Several of the graphs in the non-paywalled article mention 50nA current.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      The other half of the absurdity here.

  • Scientists develop new super engine. It accelerates by 36mph!

  • The paper says it can reach a peak voltage of 1.6V

    Also:

    The tubular nBSCs are capable of delivering an average volumetric energy density of ~90 nWh mm-3 and a power density of ~ 32 microW mm-3 at 50 nA in blood

    (edited out symbols that /. won't display properly)

  • and it just eats batteries. The strange part is that it's a Roku remote, and I have another Roku that gets a lot more use but goes through far fewer batteries. It's at least a 5:1 ratio. So naturally I assume this new technology will fix that. Somehow.

    • The newer Roku remotes use Bluetooth. But the newer Roku boxes still have an infrared port. Just get a universal remote and forget about the factory remote.

      • The one that eats batteries is older than the one that doesn't... Not sure by how much, it was a freebie with DirectTV Now.

        I'm also not sure if you're saying BT eats more juice than IR or the other way around.

        • Bluetooth definitely eats more. Before they split their product lines, the Roku 2 had a Bluetooth remote. Now, some of the cheapest budget models are IR (except the streaming stick) and the nice ones come with a Bluetooth remote.

  • And make me a laser rifle!!!!

  • Voltage is not power is not energy. What can it power? One microsecond of a flea's thinking?

  • "wafer-thin surface that is subjected to high mechanical tension, which causes the various layers to detach in a highly controlled fashion"

    Sorry, that's as far as I got before I wondered if there was a bucket invovled.
  • You know the difference between voltage and energy/power, right?

  • Yes, "but how much of muh power"? But I'm more interested in if they could put 20 million (billion?) of these things in a battery pack and have a battery that outperforms current ones.

  • That kinda means they have the same voltage as a AA, a C and a D cell, as well as any other cell using either carbon zinc or the ubiquitous alkaline chemistry. The real problem here however is that a capacitor doesn't have a "voltage". If you apply any voltage to a capacitor it will charge to that voltage, at a rate controlled by whatever series resistance exists. The voltage is only limited by the breakdown voltage of the dielectric used to separate the electrodes.
    The headline completely misses the signi

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