Researchers from the U.S. and France have created a micro-supercapacitor that has the potential to power embedded micro sensors, biomedical implants, mobile electronics, RFID tags, wireless sensor networks and other electronic gadgets.
The new supercapacitor is three orders of magnitude faster than conventional ones, which are used in wind power generators and backup power supplies.
The devices have been dubbed “micro-supercapacitors” due to their dimensions, a few micrometers thick (0.000001 meters). “We use electrodes made of onion-like carbon, a material in which each individual particle is made up of concentric spheres of carbon atoms, similar to the layers of an onion.
Each particle is 6-7 nanometers in diameter,” said Vadym Mochalin, a research assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Drexel and co-inventor.
Unlike any other supercapacitor or battery used today, these new supercapacitors are faster due to a higher surface area per volume of the electrode material.
[Source: Gizmag]
