Nano-Infused Super-Capacitors: How to Charge an Electric Vehicle in Minutes
On average it takes a typical electric car 4 hours to fully charge itself, the time it takes to charge an electric car heavily depends on its battery size and the speed of the charging point.
With the rise of Tesla and electric car consumption, our society needs to improve its battery charging infrastructure by incorporating Nano-Infused Super-Capacitors within several of its products and/or services.
Super-Capacitors vs Traditional Batteries
A capacitor is a device used to store an electric charge, capacitors are widely used in electrical circuits and can perform several tasks. These capacitors help increase the effectiveness of noise reduction as well as sensing capabilities for electrical circuits.
To put it simply, a super-capacitor is an enhanced capacitor, It stores more electricity while lasting for an even longer amount of time, enhancing its overall performance. But, why do we need to enhance our existing electricity infrastructure?
Today’s traditional lithium-ion batteries have several setbacks when it comes to their charge times and cycles. Compared to a super-capacitor, traditional batteries take somewhere between 10–60 minutes to fully charge itself while a super-capacitor takes mere seconds.
A super-capacitor can last over 1 000 000 cycles, that’s 1 000 000 times a super-capacitor can charge and discharge itself before it reaches 80% of its original capacity. However, a Li-Ion battery can only withstand 500 cycles. This means that a super-capacitor would be more effective in a longer period of time.
These advancements will be able to increase the effectiveness for charging electric cars and more advanced smartphones, creating more of these super-capacitors will increase the possibilities within our electric infrastructure in the future.
Incorporating nanotech into these super-capacitors will not only make this whole process cheaper but also a whole lot more effective.
How effective are these nano-infused super-capacitors?
Very effective.
Assuming that I is the applied current, Dt is the discharge time, DV is the potential drop during discharge, and m is the mass of electrode, we can use this formula to estimate that nano-infused capacitors will have 70% more capacitance than traditional super-capacitors.
Not only will these modified super-capacitors have greater capacitance, they will also be able to maintain a high power density of 15.4 kW kg, meaning that the time it takes to transfer the energy will be lightning fast.
To reiterate, nano-infused super-capacitors will store 70% more energy than traditional super-capacitors while being able to send lightning quick energy to its load with a power density of 15.4 kW kg.
How does a super-capacitor actually work?
Often called Double-Layer Capacitors, a supercapacitor uses double layered electrodes to charge itself.
Super-capacitors have high power density, meaning they could transfer a lot of energy in a small amount of time.
They do this by utilizing the electrostatic process. When a super-capacitor is filled with energy, it sends out energy to its load by sending out static energy, which is why super-capacitors tend to have a high power density.
Although these super-capacitors are able to fully charge itself within seconds and can typically last forever, there is one major setback that leads to the ineffectiveness of super-capacitors. They can’t hold as much voltage as a normal capacitor can.
Think of it this way, if a super-capacitor were to have the same amount of voltage as a normal lithium-ion battery, you would be able to charge your phone in seconds which would last for the whole day, think of the possibilities of a high volt super-capacitor.
We’re thinking electric car drive thru recharging stations and five-second wireless phone charging, with the gradual increase of electronic products in the market, we need these high energy density supercapacitors.
How exactly can we accomplish this? Well, there’s one substance that might be able to revolutionize super-capacitors and possibly batteries in the future. Graphene.
Enter: Nano-Infused Super-Capacitors
Carbon nanotubes and carbon spheres will be able to act as nano-spacers to separate two-dimensional graphene sheets. In simpler terms, the 0-D carbon nano-composites will be able to act as a separator for the graphene sheets.
At this point, it’s just too good to be true,
and you’re right.
In order to send out these graphene super-capacitors into the market, they will need to be cheap and easy to mass produce, news flash, it isn’t.
However, scientists have developed a self-assembly approach for nano-infused super-capacitors, meaning that there could be a solution for graphene super-capacitors in the future.
Self-assembly: Nano-composites doing the work for us
Many scientists today are trying to figure out a way to mass produce these graphene super-capacitors within their country’s budget.
Self-assembly will be able to revolutionize the energy storage industry by providing a reliable way to mass produce graphene super-capacitors without overspending on the company’s budget.
Here’s how it works.
After a carbon sphere is prepared via the hydrothermal method, it is then functionalized by a PDDA (cationic polyelectrolyte) which positively charges the carbon sphere. After it is mixed with the negatively charged graphene oxide, the self-assembly procedure takes place.
Boom.
Just like that, a hierarchical nano-composite is ready to be used within graphene super-capacitors, allowing a higher voltage to be implemented within future super-capacitors.
Applications for Nano-Infused Super-Capacitors
Ok, cool. But why do we need to do all of this work?
By utilizing these super-capacitors, we will have access to a variety of new opportunities that we were never able to access before.
Here’s to name a few.
- Electric Vehicles
By incorporating graphene, carbon spheres and CNTs (Carbon Nano-tubes) into our super-capacitors, we will be able to improve the rechargeable batteries within the electric car market.
Scientists already speculate that today’s traditional electric vehicle batteries can be greatly improved by incorporating new graphene super-capacitors.
By utilizing nano-infused super-capacitors we will be able to greatly reduce the amount of time to charge an EV. A typical full 4 hour recharge time of a typical electric car can be reduced all the way down to only 40 minutes, think of the possibilities.
2. Portable Devices
With wireless charging on the rise, our society is clearly trying to adjust itself to have more portable devices incorporated within everyone’s lives.
Social Media Marketing, YouTubeTV, our lives are becoming more dependent on portable devices. Meaning that we will need more battery life in order to use our time more effectively.
Nano-infused super-capacitors could potentially be able to charge your phone to its full capacity within seconds. We will be able to charge our wireless phones to its full capacity within the same time it takes us to make our morning coffee.
So if you forget to charge your phone overnight, the graphene super-capacitors got your back.
Key Takeaways
If there’s one thing you can take away after reading my article, just know that Graphene super-capacitors will revolutionize future electricity storage.
These next-generation EDLCs will be able to increase the capacitance of normal super-capacitors by 70%, that’s a whole lot of storage.
Not only will they hold more storage, these super-capacitors will also send out lightning fast energy. We’re talking 15.4 kW kg.
Scientists have already found a way to mass produce these devices without overspending on their budget by utilizing molecular self-assembly to create the necessary nano-composites.
Traditional Li-Ion batteries are not efficient enough for our future renewable energy society, these nano-infused super-capacitors will literally change the game.
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