A new type of battery could let people charge gadgets, appliances and electric vehicles in seconds. British start-up Zap&Go has developed carbon-ion supercapacitors that allow rapid charging. The current version is not able to store much power, but the company hopes future generations will store much more.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-41419838/carbon-ion-battery-could-mean-rapid-charging
(super)capacitors ≠ battery
ReplyDeleteOne stores energy chemically the other in an electric field
Bet you a beer they'll call it a battery when it goes commercial though.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor Of course they will.
ReplyDeleteI have it... they can make a charging unit which consists of many linked supercapcitors, thus making it a battery in the other sense of the word, e.g. a battery farm. Like xkcd's suggestion to name an exoplanet Pluto, this should annoy everyone.
ReplyDeleteSupercapacitor problem is not charge time, but energy density. Unless I missed something, this is not going to change anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteChemical batteries will continue to improve at a steady pace for the next years (there is still quite some room before hitting hard limits on chemical energy), but the next technological step there will probably be high-energy superconductors. Though it is trivial to turn a high-energy storage system as a bomb, so those may be regulated.
"The current version is not able to store much power…"
ReplyDelete