Nanotech Batteries As The New Energy Storage Devices

I’ve said it many times - nanotechnology is the future. Scientists at the Maryland NanoCenter from the University of Maryland have designed batteries that store energy coming from renewable sources, and which are 10 times more efficient than conventional systems. If you own a hybrid car or if you have solar panels on your roof, then you probably know that the systems which store the power are now very efficient, as you cannot drive long distances, while solar power deliver energy only a part of the day.

The devices that store power from alternative sources are very expensive and inefficient, but this could change in the near future thanks to the research made by the researchers at the University of Maryland.

“Renewable energy sources like solar and wind provide time-varying, somewhat unpredictable energy supply, which must be captured and stored as electrical energy until demanded. Conventional devices to store and deliver electrical energy — batteries and capacitors — cannot achieve the needed combination of high energy density, high power, and fast recharge that are essential for our energy future,” said Gary Rubloff, director of the University of Maryland’s NanoCenter.

The new energy storage devices are based on nanotechnology and they consist of millions of identical nanostructures which were shaped to transport power very fast to the storage surface. The team led by Professor Rubloff and his collaborator, Professor Sang Bok Lee, said that materials act according to the laws of nature, however, they have exploited unusual behaviors of these materials like self-assembly, self-limiting reaction, and self-alignment, and they have created millions of identical nanostructures which receive, store, and deliver electrical power.

“These devices exploit unique combinations of materials, processes, and structures to optimize both energy and power density - combinations that, taken together, have real promise for building a viable next-generation technology, and around it, a vital new sector of the tech economy. The goal for electrical energy storage systems is to simultaneously achieve high power and high energy density to enable the devices to hold large amounts of energy, to deliver that energy at high power, and to recharge rapidly,” said Rubloff.

Energy storage devices are divided in three categories - batteries (most based on lithium-ion) which store a lot of energy, but do not deliver high power and they cannot be recharged quickly; electrochemical capacitors which deliver high power at the price of lower energy density; electrostatic capacitors which deliver high power and can be recharged quickly at the price of lower energy density.

Now, the energy storage devices that the Maryland researchers have developed are called electrostatic nanocapacitors which deliver high power, can be recharge quickly, but they increase the energy density, and according to the team of researchers, these new storage devices are ten times better than conventional devices available on the market.

The nanotech batteries will get improvements soon, and Professors Lee and Rubloff expect them to enter in mass production shortly, and soon we could see them as storage devices for solar panel system and inside a hybrid car battery. Also, on the long run we could see nanotechnology as the “new energy capture technology” and it could be fully-integrated with energy storage devices. Well, ten times more power sounds great, now we just have to wait for the nanotech batteries to be perfected.