(Photo : Joe Howell, Vanderbilt University) Silicon chip with porous surface next to the special furnace where it was coated with graphene to create a supercapacitor electrode
Graphene for energy use is emerging as an exciting topic of research, with breakthrough discoveries hitting the headlines every week.
Supercapacitors, the new paradigm for portable energy, are expected to replace traditional batteries in personal devices such as cellphones, laptop computers, tablets, and even electric vehicles. Supercapacitors can recharge and discharge in just seconds, but can hold enough energy to power a handheld device for several weeks. With supercapacitors, even electric cars could be charged at “electric stations” within a few minutes, with enough “gas” to drive around the whole day. Graphene supercapacitors have existed in research labs for only two years, but the progress has been tremendous.
The recently developed process to make graphene supercapacitors, which is economical and industrially scalable, starts from the widely available graphene oxide. Although the aforementioned development is awesome, a most recent one is a serious competitor in the world of graphene supercapacitors. The recent work radically departs from all known supercapacitors, by using technology’s favorite material – silicon – as the active energy-storing material.
Instead of storing energy in chemical reactions the way batteries do, “supercaps” store electricity by assembling ions on the surface of a porous material. The problem with the concept of using silicon as the porous material for supercaps is that silicon tends to react with chemicals which form the electrolyte, a chief component of any modern energy-storing device.
The novel device, developed at Vanderbilt University, takes care of the silicon reactivity problem by coating the silicon with a layer of graphene. The graphene layer, only several nanometers thin, passivates the porous silicon surface, preventing any reaction with the electrolyte. The graphene smoothly follows the structure of the pores in silicon. The silicon-graphene composite acts as the electrode of the supercap, resulting in large improvements in energy density compared to bare silicon. Taking into account the ubiquity of silicon, this new approach provides an exciting platform for grid-scale as well as integrated (portable) energy storage.
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Graphene supercaps
- Ask Hackaday: Graphene Capacitors On Kickstarteron April 11, 2021 at 5:00 pm
I will admit I am skeptical of this Kickstarter. Apparently, these graphene supercaps are in part designed and manufactured by [Shawn] himself. He fabricates the graphene by putting graphite ...
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Sulfur powder (
- Flexible Supercaps Enable Body-Sensing Harvesting-Powered Appson March 24, 2021 at 8:40 am
By using non-layered, ultra-thin zinc-phosphorus nanosheets and 3D laser-induced graphene foam—a highly porous, self-heating nanomaterial—to construct the island-bridge design of the cells ...
- Terminator Reduces Noise Interferenceon March 23, 2021 at 5:00 pm
By using non-layered, ultra-thin zinc-phosphorus nanosheets and 3D laser-induced graphene foam—a highly porous, self-heating nanomaterial—to construct the island-bridge design of the cells ...
- Global Graphene Nano Platelets (GNPs) Electronics Market 2020 Opportunities, Challenges, Key Players, Trend and Forecast by 2025on March 22, 2021 at 1:34 pm
Graphene Square, SanDisk Corporation, Skeleton Technologies, Galaxy Microsystems, IBM Corporation, The research segments the product range of the market into: Supercaps Materials, Others ...
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Graphene supercaps
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Graphene supercapacitors
- Graphene Batteries Appear, Results Questionableon April 11, 2021 at 5:00 pm
Hopefully, in a decade or two, we might see electric cars powered not by traditional lithium batteries, but graphene supercapacitors. They’ll be able to recharge in minutes and drive further ...
- Laser Etching Graphene Supercapacitorson April 11, 2021 at 5:00 pm
you can literally print patterns of graphene using the laser in your DVD burner. By making the shapes shown above, you can introduce an electrolyte and turn the whole thing into a supercapacitor.
- Author Correction: Tuning the hierarchical pore structure of graphene oxide through dual thermal activation for high-performance supercapacitoron April 7, 2021 at 4:59 pm
“This work was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2019R1A6A1A1105566012).” now reads ...
- The Effects of Thermal Treatment of Carbon Nanotubes on Graphiteon April 5, 2021 at 5:00 pm
CNTs consist of graphene sheets (a single layer of carbon atoms arranged ... and the large surface area open up prospects for advanced application in supercapacitors, separation membranes, advanced ...
- The Worldwide Graphene Industry is Expected to Reach $1.4 Billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 19% from 2020on April 2, 2021 at 3:47 am
11.2.1 Shandong Lite Nano Technology Co., Ltd. 11.2.2 Nanjing Xfnano Materials Co., Ltd. 11.2.3 Qingdao Huagao Inkene Technology Co., Ltd. 11.2.4 2D Carbon (Changzhou ...