This is just awesome technology day!

Jstas

This is really cool too!

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/rpi-bbs080907.php

Scientists have found a way to make non-toxic batteries from carbon nano-tube infused paper. If they can get to their ideal manufacturing process of printing the nano-tubes onto paper and then soaking it in an electrolyte, batteries would be as cheap as your daily newspaper!

PolkThug

Better start planting more trees now!

Jstas

Well, paper can be made out of more than just trees and trees and other sources of paper are a renewable resource, to an extent. But since the technology seems to use no specific type of raw cellulose, it can use recycled paper too. Since the product is non-toxic, uses raw cellulose and the "ink" is carbon nano-tubes, it would likely be fairly simple to recycle and a simple electrolysis or distillation process can be used to recover the electrolyte. It's alot more viable than it seems.

Besides, if it's as light and powerful as they say it is, the energy saved and pollution eliminated by things like car batteries being made much, much lighter, cleaner and more efficiently would more than make up for the expenditure in natural resources.

It might also end up making hybrid and electric vehicles more viable. If an electric car has 2500 pounds of nickel-metal hydride batteries in it and they can get the same power and life out of one of these carbon-paper batteries at 1/20th the weight, just think what the possibilities would be!

If the electrolyte is as simple as a salty brine of some sort then the technology can be applied to things like pacemakers, hearing aides and other medical equipment that gets implanted in a body. Since the charge would com from the electrolyte, a pacemaker battery would never die because your whole body is nothing but a possible electrolyte that regenerates itself until you die. To recharge the battery, just take a piss in a bag!

That right there is cutting edge technology. The possibilities are endless and the potential is so great it's immeasurable.

mhardy6647

sounds like a paper capacitor to me :-)

Jstas

Battery: Two or more connected cells that produce a direct current by converting chemical energy to electrical energy.

Capacitor: An electric circuit element used to store charge temporarily, consisting in general of two metallic plates separated and insulated from each other by a dielectric. Also called condenser.


Nope, looks a battery to me. It is a power source. A capacitor needs an external power source to charge it. A battery can be charged and stores that charge but the charge is produced through a chemical reaction. Something like a lead/acid battery uses plates of lead immersed in an acid based electrolyte. This uses plates of carbon treated paper in a salt base electrolyte.

If it used a dielectric and two sheets of the paper to store energy then yes, it would be a capacitor. The technology can likely be used in that way also.

mhardy6647

Actually a fairly fine line between the two, and capacators are used as power storage elements in many pieces of electronic equipment (e.g., computers) nowadays, in lieu of batteries.

Of course, the real difference is that a battery (more correctly, a "cell" -- the battery in your car is indeed a "battery" of cells) uses electrochemistry (Galvanic junction potential) to generate electricity ab initio. As you correctly noted.

I was just trying to indicate that there's little new under the sun :-)

Jstas

Did I say it was "new"? It's just a different way of doing it that has many benefits. I thought it was cool technology. Spin it any way you want to support your point of view. I just wanted to share something neat. Geez.

mhardy6647

Nope, you didn't say it was new; I inferred it. sowwy.

wingnut4772

...Another key feature is the capability to use human blood or sweat to help power the battery.

:eek: