The ultracapacitor, tomorrow's battery, um, tomorrow
By Ryan Block 
posted February 11th 2006 12:47PM
posted February 11th 2006 12:47PM
We're
not saying you should keep an eye out for your new ultracapacitor battery next week or anything, but with juice-drain
at an all time high in the variety of devices we carry with us on the day to day, it's nice to know MIT's Laboratory
for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (and just about everyone else, for that matter) is hard at work on
developing new ways to bust the chemical battery once and for all. Their research has produced methods to use
vertically aligned single-wall carbon nanotube structures to create cheap, efficient, long-lasting ultracapacitors --
cells capable of delivering large (or larger, relatively speaking) amounts of energy without all the fussiness of
chemical batteries, like the temperature, discharge, explosion, and safety issues. We're just crossing our fingers
we're not too many years out from having this or other next-gen energy storage technologies properly commercialized,
constantly using Voltaic bags and hand crank chargers is really
harshing on our pull.[Thanks, Brandon]
They are also experimenting with fuel cell batteries for laptops, they are too large for most other devices though.
"harshing on our pull" ???
Fuel cells are not the way of the future IMO.
They are far too messy, and troublesome for the average consumer making them very unpractical.
Keep up the good work MIT!
I heard of a battery that uses urine. Can't remember the details.
Actually, Jay, you can provide a significant increase in charge to any battery if you urinate on it. I soak my batteries in urine every night.
*Drops Dave's camera and washes hands*
This is great news though, I'm so tired of having to continually buy batteries and charging my beloved Duracells.
Careful, Revrant--I peed on the soap, too.
I think this is the urine battery you are thinking of:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0818_050818_urinebattery.html
I heard a talk by Dr. Richard Balanson, CEO Maxwell Technologies, last year. Maxwell is an ultracapacitor firm who is already selling the tech for industrial use and not suprisingly he's an MIT alumnus. http://www.maxwell.com/ultracapacitors/
they won't have the explosion issues of batteries?
You never put a capacitor in the wrong way round in a circuit then....
fuel cells messy? only if you go with the current liquid fueld ones. there are some danish scientists that have come up with a way of binding hydrogen to salt so that its totaly stable and in pill form. this would allow you to just insert a pill into a chamber on your mobile and presto, some more talk time...
hobgoblin, I think you mean Aminex: http://www.thewatt.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&mode=nested&sid=763
The problem with capacitors is that they have low energy density, but very high power density. Batteries have higher energy density, lower power density. Fuel cells have even higher energy density and about the same power density as batteries do but there are other complications (like where to get the fuel from, how to store it, how to make it). The best solution would be to couple a capacitor with a battery/fuel cell...in fact, most electric vehciles do this already. The battery/fuel cell charges the ultracapacitor. With MIT's targets of making an ultracapcitor of higher energy density, then we would need a smaller battery/fuel cell to charge it up.