The Nano-Tube Solution - "Yes" - Case Closed?

[safe]

The Nano-Tube Solution

Capacitors never wear out, but they are limited in storing energy by their surface area.

Nano-tubes are made of simple carbon and when added to a capacitor multiply the surface area many times over what a flat plate has.

No mining in Bolivia is required to create nano-tubes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060208163356.htm

Capacitors store energy as an electrical field, making them more efficient than standard batteries, which get their energy from chemical reactions. Ultracapacitors are capacitor-based storage cells that provide quick, massive bursts of instant energy. They are sometimes used in fuel-cell vehicles to provide an extra burst for accelerating into traffic and climbing hills.

However, ultracapacitors need to be much larger than batteries to hold the same charge.

The LEES invention would increase the storage capacity of existing commercial ultracapacitors by storing electrical fields at the atomic level.

Although ultracapacitors have been around since the 1960s, they are relatively expensive and only recently began being manufactured in sufficient quantities to become cost-competitive. Today you can find ultracapacitors in a range of electronic devices, from computers to cars.

However, despite their inherent advantages -- a 10-year-plus lifetime, indifference to temperature change, high immunity to shock and vibration and high charging and discharging efficiency -- physical constraints on electrode surface area and spacing have limited ultracapacitors to an energy storage capacity around 25 times less than a similarly sized lithium-ion battery.

The LEES ultracapacitor has the capacity to overcome this energy limitation by using vertically aligned, single-wall carbon nanotubes -- one thirty-thousandth the diameter of a human hair and 100,000 times as long as they are wide. How does it work? Storage capacity in an ultracapacitor is proportional to the surface area of the electrodes. Today's ultracapacitors use electrodes made of activated carbon, which is extremely porous and therefore has a very large surface area. However, the pores in the carbon are irregular in size and shape, which reduces efficiency. The vertically aligned nanotubes in the LEES ultracapacitor have a regular shape, and a size that is only several atomic diameters in width. The result is a significantly more effective surface area, which equates to significantly increased storage capacity.

The new nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors could be made in any of the sizes currently available and be produced using conventional technology.

"This configuration has the potential to maintain and even improve the high performance characteristics of ultracapacitors while providing energy storage densities comparable to batteries," Schindall said. "Nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors would combine the long life and high power characteristics of a commercial ultracapacitor with the higher energy storage density normally available only from a chemical battery."

This is "it" the answer to the question of what is the "perfect battery".

Case closed?

Or is it?

 

[knightmb]

Well basically surface area is what you need in a capacitor, more than size. If it does finally pan out without being bought by some big company so they can sit on it, then yes a new era in energy storage will arrive. But I'm on the fence until I see one for myself and can run some test or some respected research company can provide test results or peer reviewed studies.

 

[xyster]

This is "it" the answer to the question of what is the "perfect battery".

Question Case closed?

Or is it?

A) There's no such thing as perfect anything.

B) There's no way for us to know what the future holds -- something better might come along anytime and be "more perfect".

C) There's no way for us to be even remotely certain how any new technology will perform in the real world, until it is tested in the real world -- a bazillion times and in a bazillion different ways.

So, we can have fun debating the finer points of energy storage technologies, while learning interesting things along the way, but there is no case to be closed -- case closed.

 

[Dalecv]

An ultra capacitor would definitely be a good solution if someone can produce them with the power density to compete with Lithium, the recharge rate is the biggest advantage.

One problem with carbon nanotubes, that may slow development, is toxicity concerns. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/nanotubestoxic.php

There doesn't seem to be much being said lately about the ZENN/ESStor electric car, http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=18086

Apparently there are two ways carbon nanotubes can be used in capacitors, mulit and single wall, http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2005/032305/Nanotubes_juice_super_batteries_Brief_032305.html

All of the articles I could find on carbon nanotube capacitors are a year or more old.

 

[GGoodrum]

I read somewhere recently, that some wag with a better than average future prediction record had stated the 50 years from now the energy problem will be "solved". Supposedly, we'll have a small box in our cars that have all the energy needed for the life of the car. Homes will simply have a bigger version of this "magic" box. Maybe a nano-flux capacitor?

-- Gary

 

[safe]

Case Still Open

The trick with nano-tubes will be in the manufacturing process. If they can grow the tubes on top of the capacitor plates in a manner that is pretty efficient then scale up the process then we're all in luck.

One nice thing is that you aren't in the same situation as building something like the crystals for microchips in that you don't need 100% perfection. If 10% of all the nano-tubes are defective the battery/capacitor is still going to work without any problems... but with just a slight drop on effective surface area.

The BEST thing about nano-tubes is that they should have a near infinite (from our perspective) lifespan. That means you build a car and the battery dies with the car, rather than needing an industry of constant battery replacement. That's a very important point...

Once they get the nano-tube growth thing figured out it looks to be a simple solution after that...

 

[safe]

Toxicity

Molecular electronics is making headlines. Much of it is based on single-wall carbon nanotubes, which have many other potential applications as strong, lightweight material in the aerospace and defence industries. Nanotubes are now manufactured in bulk. Dr. Smalley (Nobel laureate and a pioneer in carbon nanotube research) predicted that hundreds of thousands of tons of the stuff could be produced in 5 to 10 years and "in time, millions of tonnes of nanotubes will be produced worldwide every year". But enthusiasm for research and development has run way ahead of safety precaution.

Unprocessed nanotubes are very light, and could become airborne and potentially reach the lungs. Researchers in the Space and Life Sciences of NASA Johnson Space Center, Wyle Laboratories, and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Texas Medical School, in Houston, Texas, USA, investigated the toxicity of carbon nanotubes to the lungs, by introducing them into the trachea of mice under anaesthesia.

The results are alarming. Five of the mice treated with high dose of one kind of nanotubes died within 7 days. All nanotube products induced epitheliod granulomas – tumour-like nodules of bloated white blood cells in the lining of the lungs - and in some cases inflammation of the lungs at 7 days. These persisted and became more pronounced in animals that were sacrificed at 90days. The lungs of some animals also showed inflammation around the bronchi, and extensive necrosis (tissue death).

It sounds very much like asbestos fibers. The fibers would get into the lungs and cause all kinds of problems if made airborne. The car battery would need to be built so that in an accident a rupture would be unlikely. As long as the battery was properly protected this should be fine, but the manufacturing plant will need to have special safeguards to protect their workers.

Asbestos is nasty stuff... so are carbon nano-tubes...

 

[LockH]

Carbon nanotubes again. "Accordion-Like Conductors Could Spawn Flexible Display Screens"
http://www.livescience.com/51299-st...y-screens.html?cmpid=NL_TND_weekly_2015-06-24

 

[Hillhater]

I assume that as with any capacitor, you would still have the problem of voltage range with charge level ?

 

[neptronix]

8 year old thread revived. Nice.. :lol:

 

[LockH]

8 year old thread revived. Nice.. :lol:

Hehe... Well, current context re displays, but w/my memory recently "scrubbed clean" have learned to check ES Bible before posting ANYTHING not already brought up here already? So this "old" thread not EVen about displays but instead nanotubes as storage, but thought that concern re toxicity might be relevant anyway (plus it was amusing to see some names of ES posters from "back in the day"). Seems the "nanotube" is a multi-talented thingee.