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| CSIRO | SOLVE | Issue 1 Nov 04 | |
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ENERGY STORAGE
Why batteries may not live forever
By Tony Kaye
New developments in Australia are showing the enormous potential of supercapacitors. The next generation of supercapacitor technology is raising the bar for portable energy storage, and could eventually see conventional batteries on the way out.
Supercapacitors are devices that can store energy, deliver short bursts of power very rapidly and recharge quickly many times.They differ from conventional capacitors, which have enormous power but store only small amounts of stored energy, and batteries, which can store energy but have low power delivery and take longer to recharge.
Dr Phillip Aitchison, chief materials scientist for cap-XX, said his company had world-leading technology in smaller supercapacitors, giving Australia a competitive edge over other players in the new ways of developing supercapacitor technology. The first generation of the technology has been used for almost a decade for memory back-up in computers and in other electronic devices. Now, the focus is on developing units that can power instruments such as mobile phones, digital cameras and cordless power tools. Supercapacitors are also expected to have a significant role in the next generation of motor vehicles in which the long-serving combustion engine will be replaced by hydrogen-based fuel cells. Both Holden and Toyota, whose Prius hybridelectric sedan is selling well, are closely monitoring supercapacitor developments. Supercapacitors would supplement the large fuel-cell battery packs that have been used so far in hybrid-electric vehicles. Dr Tony Pandolfo, a CSIRO research scientist in Melbourne said current research and development was focusing on hybrid or asymmetric supercapacitors, which contain both a carbon capacitor electrode and a battery electrode. “The advantage of this is that it has more energy than a conventional supercapacitor,” Dr Pandolfo said. He said the aim was to get the same amount of stored energy in a supercapacitor as in a battery, at which point battery technology could start to be replaced. “That’s the longer-term view because the supercapacitor will have the high power capability that batteries can’t have, so if they can also match the energy storage then there’d be no reason to use a battery.” For further information contact: |
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Early
supercapacitors have already shown their potential in applications such as
back-up power for portable computers. However, new
developments in Australia by CSIRO Energy Technology and the Energy Transformed
Flagship are pointing to the potential for much higher-powered capabilities.
According to
cap-XX,
a
Sydney-based
designer
and manufacturer of supercapacitors that works closely with the CSIRO, the
worldwide capacitor market could exceed US$2 billion a year by 2006 based on
recent technical advances giving supercapacitors more energy.
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