High-energy density Supercapacitors – An excellent alternate to battery power storage

This study by Augmented Optics Ltd., could transform into exceedingly high energy density super – capacitors, making it feasible to recharge your mobile phone, mobile devices or laptops in just couple of seconds.

Such technology could create a seismic impact across a range of industries, comprising aerospace, transport, energy generation and household applications like mobile phones, electrical devices, biosensors and flat screen. It could also transform electrical cars, enabling the possibility for them to recharge the fuel with petrol – a procedure that presently consumes around 6 – 8 hours to recharge.

Consider, instead of an electronic car being constrained to a drive from the Brighton to London, the novel technology could enable the electrical car to travel from London to Edinburgh without the requirement to recharge, but when it did recharged for such operation to consume just a couple of minutes to perform.

Suprcapacitor vehicles are already used in China, but they have a highly limited range whereas such technology could enable them to travel a lot further between recharges. Rather of recharging every 2 – 3 stops such technology could imply they just require recharging only 20 – 30 stops and that will only consume a few seconds.

Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla has conventionally stated such belief that supercapacitors are probable to be the technology for future electrical air transportation. We consider that the current scientific advance could make that vision a big reality. The technology was adapted from the principles utilized to make soft contact lenses that Dr. Donald Highgate developed after his postgraduate studies at Surrey 40 years ago. Supercapacitors, a substitute power source to batteries, restore energy utilizing electrodes and electrolytes and both deliver and charge energy quickly, unlike traditional batteries that function so in a much slower and sustained manner.

Supercapacitors possess the ability to charge as well as discharge rapidly over extremely high numbers of cycles. But, because of poor energy density per kilogram, they have, till now, been unable to compete with traditional battery energy storage in multiple applications.

Dr. Brendan Howlin from the University of Surrey confirms, “There is a worldwide search for novel energy storage technology and such novel ultra-capacity supercapacitor has the ability to open the door to unthinkably innovative developments.”

The revolutionary research program was organized by scientists at the University of Surrey’s Department of Chemistry where the project was instigated by Dr.Donal Highgate of Augmented Optics Ltd. The scientific team was co – headed by the Principal Investigators, Dr.Drendan Howlin and Dr. Ian Hamerton.

Dr. Hamerton still continues to associate on the project in such novel post at the University of Bristol, where the electrochemical testing to investigate the research experiments were carried out by the fellow University of Bristol Academy, David Fermin, a lecturer of Electrochemistry in the School of Chemistry.