NC State researchers working up longevous capacitors

If being able to recharge your future collection of batteries "a thousand times more" than your existing stockpile sounds enticing, a team of NC State physicists now have your attention. Thanks to their research on the electromechanical properties of the commonly used polymer polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), they have discovered that when combined with CTFE (that's yet another polymer), it may allow capacitors to store "up to seven times more energy than those currently in use." According to Vivek Ranjan, the process moves atoms within the material "in order to make the polymer rearrange with the least voltage," and this storage booster could even be used to allow electric cars of the future to sport the "same acceleration capability as a gas-powered sports car." Sounds like more than a few manufacturers are desperate for something like this, eh?

[Image courtesy of Biopact]

[Alvin @ Jul 21st 2007 2:00AM]

Hopefully the explosions aren't seven times more damaging

[Karl @ Jul 21st 2007 4:10AM]

Capacitors don't explode. Unlike Chemical battery cells.

A capacitor is two plates of metal with something shoved in between them. When you put a voltage across the two ends, an electric field is created, which stores energy. Remove the voltage and the field gets turned in to electrical energy until depleted.

[hash @ Jul 21st 2007 4:44AM]

Capacitors do explode, when they're subjected to voltages grater than their rated voltage or have failed in some way that even a small voltage produces a short between the electrodes. Just don't try this at home though, the fumes from the explosion are toxic.

[Carlton @ Jul 21st 2007 10:24AM]

Yeah, caps definitely explode. Just take a polarized aluminum electrolytic and put it in backwards and apply some decent voltage. *pop*

[Fatima @ Jul 21st 2007 2:14AM]

I read a while ago BMW was already researching this to put into their Hybrids.
Prius type hybrids that are boring wont jive with BMW's handling and performance requirements.

[David @ Jul 21st 2007 2:27AM]

EEStor should be a lot closer to market with something similar, provided everything works out as planned.

[Ashton Tibbitt @ Jul 21st 2007 2:47AM]

I can't wait to go to NC State! I want to work on stuff like this!

[Psyc @ Jul 21st 2007 9:10AM]

Haha! Me too. I love it when NC State makes it to Engadget.

[tehpwnmstr @ Jul 21st 2007 3:11AM]

this seems it would go along nicely with some of those high performance solar cells, wouldnt it?
http://www.energy.gov/news/4503.htm
or my DS?

[letstakeawalk @ Jul 21st 2007 3:30AM]

I'm planning to recap my Imperial 6Gs - will these be too much?

[Rob @ Jul 21st 2007 10:19AM]

I don't get why you guys didn't call Vivek Ranjan on his statement:
'...this storage booster could even be used to allow electric cars of the future to sport the "same acceleration capability as a gas-powered sports car."'
I think Engadget knows electric cars have had good acceleration for years (besides your link showing one super-fast electric car), but I just want to be sure readers know that electric cars accelerate fine. You'd think Vivek Ranjan would know that too!

[kickngas @ Jul 21st 2007 10:31AM]

Go Pack!! As a proud NC State grad and electric car enthusiast, http://www.kickngas.org , this type of tech advance gives me hope for the next gen EV's. Since capacitors can charge up almost immediately, the use of them would knock one more negative from plausible EV use for consumers....now, what about the range?...

[dslate69 @ Jul 21st 2007 10:51AM]

Yea the acceleration statement got me too when the Wrightspeed X1 electric car actually blows away both a Ferrari and Porsche. Electric cars have phenomenal acceleration it's distance that gas power has the edge.

[Carlton @ Jul 21st 2007 10:27AM]

Ultracaps have been in development since the 80's. You can get double layer electrolytics with up to 5000 Farads of psuedo-capacitance. However, we are still far off from seeing this replace batteries any time soon. More likely that fuel cells will replace batteries. Ultracaps do have tons of other uses though, since they have a lot more power density than batteries, by orders of magnitude (the energy density of batteries is a couple orders of magnitude higher than ultracaps right now).

[Darren @ Jul 21st 2007 11:10AM]

Of course there are electric builds that kick it off the line quicker than gas-powered cars right now, but they ain't cheap. This stuff requires a whole lot less R&D and could potentially make those kind of vehicles actually feasible for the average joe to one day pick up.

[David @ Jul 21st 2007 9:27PM]

Sounds like the guy on Becker.

[cappery @ Jul 26th 2007 8:34PM]

Note: the news release is somehow misleading. the NCSU team just used computer simulations to explain a previous experimental observation from penn state (who published a paper in 2006 in Science and have started a company to commercialize the technology). the NCSU does not develop any new materials. Based on the Penn State information, they have actually doubled the capacitor film performance during the past year to over 30 J/cc.
http://www.strategicpolymers.com/