Published on Oct 21, 2018
****EDIT: meant to say Graphene is made out of Carbon, not Silicon.
Hello. Welcome to NeoScribe.
We’ve all seen the headlines.
Graphene Batteries that charge five times faster!
Solid-State Batteries with 10 times the capacity!
There’re so many news stories about energy storage research these days that after a while you’re like, bring it to market already!
Because we get so excited from these headlines that we want them in our devices now!
The great Joe Scott said it best when he said… ///Joe Scott Vid///
And while these promising breakthroughs may not lead to actual products as fast as we would like, eventually one or many WILL get there. Right?
So, while we wait, let’s talk about yet ANOTHER breakthrough in energy storage research, the record-breaking 3D Printed Graphene Supercapacitor from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory!
I get a kick out of that description, it’s like all of the Nerd Buzzwords packed together, 3D Printed Graphene Supercapacitor.
Anyway, before we talk about that let’s BRIEFLY talk about what supercapacitors are.
A Supercapacitor or Supercap is an energy storage device similar to batteries. While batteries release electrical energy from chemical reactions, Supercaps GENERALLY store energy from static electricity.
Supercaps have a lot of advantages over batteries and may one day replace batteries as the dominant portable energy storage technology.
They charge ridiculously fast, have a virtually unlimited cycle life, they work better than batteries in extreme temperatures and they can also have a higher power density than batteries.
In other words, they can transfer energy much faster than batteries.
But Supercaps have one major disadvantage, they have much lower energy density and that is why batteries have wider applications.
And this takes us to Pseudocapacitors.
Think of pseudocapacitor as a bridge between batteries and supercapacitors as they maintain a lot of the same advantages as supercaps but have higher energy densities.
But the challenge with improving energy density in pseudocapacitors is as you increase the thickness of the electrode usually made out of manganese oxide, the performance of the device drops rapidly because the ions have to move through more material.
And this is where Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory comes in.
On October 18th the lab reported that they developed an electrode out of 3D-Printed Graphene Aerogel that has the highest ratio of energy stored per unit of surface area ever recorded for a supercap.
And by small chance you don’t know what graphene is, there are tons of videos out there about it but it’s simply a sheet of silicon one atom thick that scientist slap on anything and makes it 5 or 10 times better.
Anyway, Lawrence Livermore has been fabricating electrodes this way for a while but the difference this time is Lawrence Livermore has greatly improved the graphene aerogel leading to this record-breaking performance.
The way it works is the aerogel is printed as a scaffold composed of a tiny porous rod meaning it has a bunch of tiny holes and spaces.
Then manganese oxide I loaded into the scaffold allowing for much more of it in the electrode without slowing down the ions.
This is called mass-loading, and that is the record that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The electrode they built has 100 milligrams of manganese oxide per square cm, compared to typical commercial supercaps that have only 10 milligrams per square cm!
Another benefit from this breakthrough is that it will allow supercaps to cheaper to produce.
You see, manufactures have to stack thin layers of current collectors, made out of metal sheets coated with electrode material in order to increase energy densities without sacrificing performance and this increases material costs.
It would take ten layers of current collectors to equal the energy density of the 3D printed Electrode.
With this breakthrough, it appears that scientists are getting closer and closer to filling the gaps between batteries and supercaps.
So, when can we expect to see supercaps in our devices?
Not soon enough!
All kidding aside, this is an exciting and promising breakthrough in portable energy storage technology to add to the long list of other exciting and promising breakthroughs and hopefully, in the next 10 years, we can see either battery replacing supercaps or solid state batteries actually come to market.
Until then, we can dream of an incredible future….
Alright, that’s all I have for now.
I hope you enjoyed your journey, if you did, please leave a like and subscribe.
I am NeoScribe and I’ll see you on the next journey.
Hello. Welcome to NeoScribe.
We’ve all seen the headlines.
Graphene Batteries that charge five times faster!
Solid-State Batteries with 10 times the capacity!
There’re so many news stories about energy storage research these days that after a while you’re like, bring it to market already!
Because we get so excited from these headlines that we want them in our devices now!
The great Joe Scott said it best when he said… ///Joe Scott Vid///
And while these promising breakthroughs may not lead to actual products as fast as we would like, eventually one or many WILL get there. Right?
So, while we wait, let’s talk about yet ANOTHER breakthrough in energy storage research, the record-breaking 3D Printed Graphene Supercapacitor from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory!
I get a kick out of that description, it’s like all of the Nerd Buzzwords packed together, 3D Printed Graphene Supercapacitor.
Anyway, before we talk about that let’s BRIEFLY talk about what supercapacitors are.
A Supercapacitor or Supercap is an energy storage device similar to batteries. While batteries release electrical energy from chemical reactions, Supercaps GENERALLY store energy from static electricity.
Supercaps have a lot of advantages over batteries and may one day replace batteries as the dominant portable energy storage technology.
They charge ridiculously fast, have a virtually unlimited cycle life, they work better than batteries in extreme temperatures and they can also have a higher power density than batteries.
In other words, they can transfer energy much faster than batteries.
But Supercaps have one major disadvantage, they have much lower energy density and that is why batteries have wider applications.
And this takes us to Pseudocapacitors.
Think of pseudocapacitor as a bridge between batteries and supercapacitors as they maintain a lot of the same advantages as supercaps but have higher energy densities.
But the challenge with improving energy density in pseudocapacitors is as you increase the thickness of the electrode usually made out of manganese oxide, the performance of the device drops rapidly because the ions have to move through more material.
And this is where Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory comes in.
On October 18th the lab reported that they developed an electrode out of 3D-Printed Graphene Aerogel that has the highest ratio of energy stored per unit of surface area ever recorded for a supercap.
And by small chance you don’t know what graphene is, there are tons of videos out there about it but it’s simply a sheet of silicon one atom thick that scientist slap on anything and makes it 5 or 10 times better.
Anyway, Lawrence Livermore has been fabricating electrodes this way for a while but the difference this time is Lawrence Livermore has greatly improved the graphene aerogel leading to this record-breaking performance.
The way it works is the aerogel is printed as a scaffold composed of a tiny porous rod meaning it has a bunch of tiny holes and spaces.
Then manganese oxide I loaded into the scaffold allowing for much more of it in the electrode without slowing down the ions.
This is called mass-loading, and that is the record that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The electrode they built has 100 milligrams of manganese oxide per square cm, compared to typical commercial supercaps that have only 10 milligrams per square cm!
Another benefit from this breakthrough is that it will allow supercaps to cheaper to produce.
You see, manufactures have to stack thin layers of current collectors, made out of metal sheets coated with electrode material in order to increase energy densities without sacrificing performance and this increases material costs.
It would take ten layers of current collectors to equal the energy density of the 3D printed Electrode.
With this breakthrough, it appears that scientists are getting closer and closer to filling the gaps between batteries and supercaps.
So, when can we expect to see supercaps in our devices?
Not soon enough!
All kidding aside, this is an exciting and promising breakthrough in portable energy storage technology to add to the long list of other exciting and promising breakthroughs and hopefully, in the next 10 years, we can see either battery replacing supercaps or solid state batteries actually come to market.
Until then, we can dream of an incredible future….
Alright, that’s all I have for now.
I hope you enjoyed your journey, if you did, please leave a like and subscribe.
I am NeoScribe and I’ll see you on the next journey.
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