Polymer breakthrough reveals unprecedented alternative to battery power storage | Hacker News Reader

Polymer breakthrough reveals unprecedented alternative to battery power storage

surrey.ac.uk

23 pointsautopoiesis11 comments

"The test results from the new polymers suggest that extremely high energy density supercapacitors could be constructed in the very new future." Not "We have a demo model working". More on the actual chemistry, from 2017.[1] Seems they announced this before, in June 2017.

Even if this doesn't turn into a big energy storage thing, maybe they can replace ordinary electrolytic capacitors. Least reliable component in electronics.

[1] https://chemical-materials.elsevier.com/new-materials-applic...

As of 2018 it's tested:

> By using small single layer cells charged to 1.5 volts for two to five minutes and then run demonstration devices, including a small fan.

> By using a three-cell series stack that is able to be rapidly charged to five volts and operate an LED.

https://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2018/alternative-...

(Link first posted here by BugsJustFindMe. Also says "if these values of capacitance can be achieved in production, it could potentially see supercapacitors achieving energy densities of up to 180whr/kg - greater than lithium ion batteries.")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Performanc...

Wikipedia shows 100-250whr/kg for lithium ion. Not familiar enough to know which is right.

I think you stumbled on a wiki turd. Citation for the x-250 number is https://web.archive.org/web/20111107060525/http://www.panaso..., which has the volumetric density in kG/L but not the specific density.

The 2018 version of this is https://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2018/alternative-...

I'm not sure why the 2016 release was posted instead.

Honestly, I'm not sure how that happened either. Thanks for posting the new one!

They claim 4F / cm² between smooth surfaces, which seems impossibly high. Even if the dielectric is only 5 Å thick, that corresponds to a dielectric constant of 2.2e6. The highest dielectric constants materials I know of are around 2e4.

There are lots of things which are publicized like this but never go anywhere.

More details at https://www.theengineer.co.uk/supercapacitors-battery-techno... -- hard to find an actual paper, though

Anyone have a link to the actual paper? Some polymers are known to have extremely high dielectric constants.

(2016)

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