
A scientific accident that could change the world - roachsocal
http://io9.com/5987086/meet-the-scientific-accident-that-could-change-the-world
======
BenoitEssiambre
Conspicuously missing is any mention of energy density. Who cares about power
density. That's juste how fast it can discharge. We don't need capacitors that
can discharge faster. All capacitors are already much better than batteries
with respect to power. We need capacitors that can store more energy.
Capacitors typically suck at that and this article doesn't give any indication
that these new ones are better.

~~~
dmethvin
In the comments they mention about 1/4 the energy density of a lithium ion
battery, so yes they don't compete on that measure. But full charging can
happen in a minute or two, and you could top up a charge in seconds. Perhaps
public areas would have inductive chargers on the wall; you'd just walk over
and hold your phone or tablet up to it for a few seconds. Airline tray tables
could have an inductive charger built in.

Higher energy densities aren't without issues, as Boeing found out with their
787. A battery like that is basically an explosive and it can be tricky to
manage.

~~~
brokenparser
Your inductive charging tray tables are terrible for my magnetic tapes and
floppy disks. Also, where does it get its energy from? It's much more
efficient to walk around with wearable solar panels or to embed them directly
into the devices. It may not work well on the north pole half the time but
batteries aren't very conductive in those environments, anyway.

~~~
samstave
When was the last time you walked around with a magnetic tape or floppy disc?

Now - what happens if you put your wallet full of credit cards on it?

~~~
Tomdarkness
To be honest, magnetic strips on credit cards are redundant in a fair
proportion of the world as well, especially Europe, although with a notable
exception of the US which seems to be seriously lagging behind in this area. I
live in the UK and it has easily been over 6 years since I have been anywhere
where the magnetic strip has been read rather than using chip & pin (EMV).

~~~
philwelch
I visited the UK late last year and can confirm that your card readers can
still read the magnetic stripes on our outdated American credit cards if they
absolutely have to.

~~~
lostlogin
Unfortunately both types die with exposure to magnetic fields - I accidentally
too mine into an MRI scanner. This may not Oruro at a lower field strength
with the chip type however.

~~~
brokenparser
SYNTAX ERROR UNEXPECTED TO... Oh, :s/Oruro/occur/

~~~
lostlogin
Wow. That was a bad one, sorry, and I can't edit it. It was supposed to say:
Unfortunately both types die with exposure to magnetic fields - I accidentally
took mine into an MRI scanner. This may not occur at a lower field strength
with the chip-type card however.

------
lifeisstillgood
I really don't want to come across as nit picky but is this one time when
changing a linkbait headline to something more descriptive would help - on the
iPhone this page did not render thE actual text for a full half hour
(subjective) and I spent all that time with my brain whirring but not in gear
- it was a little frustrating

A headline like "DVD Graphene sheets store charge super fast in lab" would
have helped me shift the various articles into my own working memory whilst
the page loaded.

Downvote with comments please

(And I seem to get the general idea that Graphene will be big, but this is
unlikely to be the killer app)

~~~
nivla
I agree with you, the title could have been a little more descriptive. I have
seen the same video posted here and on Reddit multiple times in the past few
months. Although I don't mind it being posted again, since there is always a
group of people who haven't seen it, a descriptive title could have prevented
me from getting overly interested about this.

------
ratsbane
Am I the only one to think "hey, I could try this at home?" 1) prepare carbon
slurry 2) pour on dvd 3) etch with LightScribe DVD drive... 4) Peel of
graphene layer ...?

I wonder what, exactly, goes into the carbon slurry and if it's necessary to
etch a particular pattern with the LightScribe.

~~~
clebio
I wondered about the etching process too. It might not be at all like a normal
R/W pattern for a DVD. They could conceivably be scanning radially, or using a
very slow revolution, or (is this possible?) re-tuning the beam's frequency.
Not insurmountable, but might require low-level re-writing of the driver,
depending.

~~~
wyager
>(is this possible?) re-tuning the beam's frequency.

No. DVD burners simply use a 630nm or 650nm red laser diode. It can not be re-
tuned more than a few nm, by regulating the temperature of the diode.

You _could_ replace the diode, but that is more effort than it's worth, and
there's not much else to replace it with. If you wanted more power you might
use a different diode, but the diodes are almost always buried really far in
there and you would have to replace the electronics as well.

------
ergest
I don't know much about the technology of this, but I used to play with
capacitors during my teenage years and if this works even half as advertised
it would be truly life altering. We could have "hybrid" solutions of a
capacitor combined with a battery with the capacitor acting as a buffer to
improve battery life.

~~~
mapt
Hybrid solutions are hypothetically very nice, but as I understand it in
reality the large battery banks associated with a gas-tank-like range, and the
relatively minor amount of power the motors can actually put out, means that
short-term power density isn't actually much of a problem.

------
paul_f
Using Graphene to build supercapacitors is not a new idea as this video
suggests. Here is an article from 2.5 years ago in PhysicsWorld describing
another team doing almost the same thing:

[http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/nov/26/graphen...](http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/nov/26/graphene-
supercapacitor-breaks-storage-record)

------
axelfreeman
I'm not a scientist. I can't not say anything how this could be a revolution
but if you want learn the basics about Graphene. Start with this video on
youtube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX8ClPVkD1g> and then to this
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXmVnHgwOZs> or just search it on youtube.
This helps me a lot to understand. Have fun.

~~~
fus
Nice videos. Thank you sir.

------
Fargren
Well, the graphene seems easy enough to manufacture. What are the obstacles to
start using this technology right now? What is still missing?

~~~
jaredmcateer
In my inexpert knowledge I can see a few problems, while they have probably
seen potential, they have yet to prove it can scale. Then there is getting
manufacturers of devices to buy in to super capacitors and even worse getting
battery life obsessed consumers to accept 1/4 the life as current Li Ion
batteries is better because it has nearly instantaneous recharge times.

~~~
gizmo686
In my experience, the reason people are obssessed with battery life is that
when it runs out (which it does), then you are pretty much screwed until you
can plug it in for the night.

I think that vendors could easily sell devices with a smaller capacity if they
can charge in seconds. This seems like a benefit that is very clear, easy to
explain, and understandable to a typical consumer, and it provides a near
perfect solution to one of the major inconveniences of current phones. And,
that inconvenience happens to be what people currently look to long battery
life to mitigate.

~~~
revelation
I think the vendors could already charge the batteries faster. A Tesla
supercharger charges 40/85kWh in LiIon battery capacity in 30 minutes (from
empty, it gets harder to push charge in as they get full). They use off the
shelf batteries.

But the dirty little secret is of course that it's not necessary. You need one
day of battery life, then people get home and charge it by their nightstand.
Similar with the Tesla, it has enough range to get through five times the
average American commute, and the majority of people just charge at home when
they sleep.

Bandaging peoples irrational fears might simply not be a very viable business
model.

~~~
mark-r
> Bandaging peoples irrational fears might simply not be a very viable
> business model.

Are you kidding? It's one of the best business models ever.

In this case I think you have it backwards. Instant charging isn't bandaging a
fear, because you rightly make the point that the fear of running out of power
is already covered by ensuring the device has sufficient capacity for the
worst case. Indeed it will create a new fear: forgetting or not being in a
position to top off the charge when necessary.

------
alexjeffrey
I'd love to see this technology being incorporated into Tesla's batteries.
With super-fast and long lasting charges their cars might become viable in
countries where charging stations are either incredibly rare or nonexistent.

~~~
gus_massa
I searched a little, but the information is confusing. The superchargers
(apparently) use 90kW/480V=~190A. I want to highlight this: 190A!!!

A usual home connection can handle only up to ~10A, so 190A is a lot of
current. To handle this you must use very thick wires. To charge faster you
need move voltage or handle more current, probably you will need even thicker
wires and to be careful with the safety measures.

Additionally, this experiment use only in a tiny lab sample. To increase the
size and make a big model for a car, a lot of technical details will appear,
for example how to handle all the heat that the battery produces during the
charge / discharge cycles.

~~~
frankus
A typical new house in the US is wired for a 200A 240V circuit, or about 48kW.

By contrast the energy flux of a garden-variety gas pump is in the tens of
megawatts.

~~~
lostlogin
Is that at the fuse box or the power point on the wall? Sorry if this is a
silly question, it's just that here in NZ it's nowhere near that at the wall
as the fuses are 10 amp ish.

~~~
gus_massa
The 200A are at the fuse box (in new houses, old houses may have less).

The wall sockets usually have 110V-15/20A connections. But there are some
especial sockets with 240V-30/50A for special applications, like clothes
dryers and electric ovens.

~~~
lostlogin
In our old house some genius used paper clips instead of fused wire in the
(very old) fuse box. Not sure how I didn't die when I draped and extension
lead in a puddle and got a shock. After I recovered I looked in the fuse box
to see why the fuse didn't blow and found one fat paper clip over the gap. I'm
not sure what current the box took, but I'm sure glad it wasn't 200Amps.

------
achy
I wrote this last time too: Having a better conducting, higher surface area
electrode is a huge step. BUT it doesn't really change the fact that a carbon
based supercapacitor requires an electrolyte to form the double layer, and all
existing electrolytes have a breakdown voltage below 5V. What we need is a
better electrolyte. In calculating energy storage in a capacitor, the energy
increases exponentially with voltage, while linearly with capacitance.

------
dj-doppelganger
Hi - 1st post on Haker news. Please be nice :)

Aren't debates over energy density of super conductors v. Li-Ion batteries
missing the important point, relative cost?

E.g. If the energy density is 1/4 lower but the cost is 1/40th as much then
electric cars get ALOT more viable. Can anyone guess at the relative cost?

~~~
bluedanieru
How important that point is depends on how much range affects viability as
opposed to the cost of the vehicle itself. Electric cars are rather expensive
I guess, but few people are going to make the switch to cheaper cars if they
only have a range of 20km.

------
alanh
(semi-serious) Title should be “Meet _another_ scientific accident that could
change the world”

------
chrisivens
I don't quite understand the maths behind all this but it certainly sound
positive overall. It normally takes a while for things to get to the consumer
but how long do we think it'll take to get to us or cars? Will it even get to
consumers?

------
frozenport
Diamonds are carbon based but you can't use them to grow vegetables.

~~~
MertsA
Not with that attitude, just put them in a 100% oxygen environment and heat
with an arc furnace and Bob's your uncle you got CO2.

------
Selfcommit
Anyone else remember when this was posted a few months ago? (I wish my account
was named pepperidge farm, just for occasions like this.)

~~~
MichaelApproved
This comment feels like its one step away from just being the word "repost". I
really like browsing reddit but please leave these types of comments there.
Hacker News is not reddit.

~~~
Selfcommit
Yeah, I don't understand the down votes honestly. We've seen this - not just a
few months ago.

Why is it ok to post again? Should I have provided the HN link?

~~~
AndrewDucker
It's more that your comment didn't add anything to the conversation.

If you'd said "You can find the previous conversation at XXX" then you'd be
contributing. As it is you just added noise.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Thanks for elaborating for me. The key point is adding to the conversation.
Novelty accounts tend to be the realm of Reddit but one of my favorites is the
one that says "Anyone looking for more information..." and goes on to list
past posts of a link. That's infinitely better than simply "Repost"

