Nanometre 'fuses' for super batteries

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Minuscule tubes coated with a chemical fuel can act as a power source with 100 times more electrical power by weight than conventional batteries.

As these nano-scale "fuses" burn, they drive an electrical current along their length at staggering speeds.

The never-before-seen phenomenon could lead to a raft of energy applications.

Researchers reporting in Nature Materials say that unlike normal batteries, the nanotubes never lose their stored energy if left to sit.

Read more...

[RobertoIlias]

so the problem of storing sloar energy is solved?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

so the problem of storing sloar energy is solved?

If this works the problem of storing any type of electrical energy is solved... for the time being. If the history of technological advances has taught us one thing it is that, without doubt, we will eventually require greater and more efficient energy storage than these nano-tubes offer.

[sepulchrave]

Interesting article.

I'm not sure if I would say this is a solution to `storing power' - at least in the sense I think you mean, AmbientSoul.

These things only work if they are covered in a chemical fuel, they then generate the electricity (and also, apparently, a small amount of thrust!) when the fuel is ignited. Adding more fuel to a device is probably not very efficient - and certainly synthesizing the fuel from raw constituents using solar power would not be very efficient - so this isn't really a viable means of story solar power for rainy days.

I rather think this is a solution to `transporting power'; you could run a laptop (or a car) off one of these for much longer than you could with a regular battery.

I find it interesting that this works with multi-walled nanotubes, which I understand are much easier to make than single-walled nanotubes. It does seem to require the nanotubes to be pretty long (2 - 4 mm in the Nature Materials article), and obviously to get usable power they all have to be aligned between a common anode and cathode - another tricky problem.

Still this research seems a lot more promising than many other `energy solutions' I have heard of.