UCLA and
Egyptian scientist accidentally find a new way to bottle stored energy. This
missing link for solar energy, hydro and electric cars could be a fast, tiny,
biodegradable battery
Penicillin,
Teflon, microwave ovens and superglue were all discovered by accident. And now
graphene super-capacitors might be the most important accidental discovery of
our time – one that can change the way energy is stored. A team of UCLA
researchers led by chemist Richard Kaner used a commercial DVD burner to
produce sheets of a carbon-based material known as graphene.
The
“accident” occured when Cairo University graduate Maher El-Kady (pictured
below) wired a small piece of graphene to an LED and found that it behaved as a
super-capacitor, able to store a considerable amount of electricity. Their
laser-scribed graphene is ideal as a super capacitor partially because of its
enormous surface area, 1520 square meters per gram. Here’s how it works:
The story
begins with quirky old kite-flying American, a key and a bolt of lightning. It
ends with a jar full of electricity. Benjamin Franklin’s jar of electricity is
known as a Leyden jar.
It is a
primitive electronic circuit element known as a capacitor. The Leyden jar
illustrates some promising characteristics of capacitors. As electrical storage
devices, they are extraordinarily simple. You can make one at home with a glass
jar and a some aluminum foil.
Capacitors
have some advantages over Lithium, Nickle-Metal hydride and other chemical
batteries. Batteries convert electrical energy to and from chemical energy. But
capacitors store electrical charge by bottling excess electrons on one side of
a thin barrier.
So
capacitors needn’t contain caustic mixtures of acids, alkalis and toxic metals
as batteries do. Capacitors can also be charged many times and they can be
charged very fast. Some of the tantalum and electrolytic capacitors inside your
computer or iPad are charging and discharging millions of times while you read
this.
|
Maher El-Kady |
If
capacitors are so wonderful, why aren’t they used in place of batteries
electric cars to laptops and mobile phones?
The problem
is that capacitors aren’t able to store very much energy. A Lithium Ion battery
the size of a Leyden jar can store more than 500,000 times more energy.
But
capacitors have improved since the Leyden jar. The graphene capacitor these
UCLA scientists created has 4 billion times the capacitence of a Leyden jar.
Since its
operating voltage is much lower, it might only store about 40,000 times the
energy density of a Leyden jar, but this brings it much closer to the energy
density of a chemical battery.
And that
could change everything.
A film
explaining the story of this invention is a finalist in the General Electric
focus forward filmmaker competition.
Watch the
film and decide for yourself whether a small, efficient, biodegradable energy
storage device might revolutionize the future of energy storage.
Related Articles:
"THE NEXT 18 YEARS"– Dec 2, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) (Subjects: You are looking at a Quantum event, clearing a filter - Portal pineal , Higher self to step forward and communicate to You, Still remains in 3D but exposure to multi dimensions, Evolution of humanity, Intent, Mayan Calendar, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, 26.000 Years, Milky Way, Nostradamus, 1987, Beginning to a New Time, Channellers/Teachers, Center of Galaxy – Black hole, Bridge of Swords, Pleiadians, Children, Inventions – The discoveries (e.g. : Airplanes - Medicines – Radio ...): These new Discoveries were given all over the planet when Human consciousness was ready for it, New Inventions are coming, the timing depends on how the middle East problems are solved, Biology reaction of quantum energy; new radio of the future, seeing quantum energy, when it is revealed all science books will have to be rewritten, This will be an AHA moment – be possible to communicate with the rest of Galaxy, NASA, Church/religion will be effected the most by these discoveries, The quantum discovery will see the grid, life, gardens and will redefine life, DNA (3 billion pieces) evolving piece DNA are chancing, Gaia/Humanity are linked, new instruments will start to reveal the DNA variance, Evolution revealed: Autistic children have born with the removal of their 3D structure in the brain, Gaia/Spirit are testing these quantum beings (Evolved DNA), Universe central clock = Rifs, Globally there will be only 5 currencies, Wars on earth will be declared barbaric, Middle East, Global Unity, .. etc.)
“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.
It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.
So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.
Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”
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