Energy Storage
6 articles in this category
A capacitor printed from cement lights LEDs
Chinese researchers 3D-printed an element from cement that stores electricity and keeps a strength close to ordinary concrete. In the lab it lit LEDs, but it stops working in frost of minus 18 degrees.
Iron laced with tungsten stores hydrogen without fusing into a lump
Iron can store hydrogen, but in a hot furnace its powder slowly fuses into a solid lump. US researchers added tungsten, and 1.5 kilograms of powder came through 30 cycles with almost no loss of capacity.
A solid electrolyte without toxic gases. It conducts like a liquid
Nagoya decodes LLNOF: fluoride steps aside for lithium and an oxide solid electrolyte hits a 16.3 mS/cm record — without sulfide toxic gases.
Hydrogen under lock and key. Without 300 degrees.
Hydrogen is the best fuel we know — and the hardest to store. Japanese scientists found a way to lock it in metal and release it again at 90 degrees, without heating it to three hundred.
Anatomy of a lithium-free battery. Four layers no one could stack
Sodium instead of lithium: Yang-Kook Sun's team stacked four cathode layers that blocked sodium batteries for 20 years. 82.9% capacity after 300 cycles.
Ten Nanometers That Keep the Battery in Check
A calcium sodium phosphate layer just ten nanometers thick stopped O3 sodium cathode cracking — smooth surface after 300 cycles. Cheap compounds instead of exotic materials.