Published in Chemistry World, 20 Jun 2010
Researchers in the US claim to have created electrodes from carbon nanotubes that can make lithium-ion batteries some ten times more powerful than conventional models. Such batteries, they say, could one day be used for power-hungry applications, such as hybrid vehicles and renewable energy sources.
One challenge in the field of energy storage is to create devices that combine the high capacity of batteries with the high power delivery of capacitors. If batteries are the starting point, the trick is to improve the speed at which ions flow into electrodes. During the discharge of a battery, ions flow from within the anode to the electrolyte and into the cathode, thereby generating the current – so speeding this process up is key to creating high power delivery. […]
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