Neat Stuff
Some researchers at Rice University have developed ‘Paint-on’ batteries according to the BBC.
If they can get this into production, the weight of the batteries in an electric vehicle could be distributed evenly just like the paint. OTOH, there are no hard numbers on how long the ‘batteries’ will last, as well as a lot of other factors involved in making the process viable.
It is nice to know that people are working on one of the biggest problems of renewable energy production – filling the gap when the sun isn’t shining, the wind isn’t blowing, etc. Energy storage is vital to the process.
3 comments
The actual use of this would be for very tiny devices, where currently the metal casings of traditional lithium batteries make creating such devices impossible. The deal is, when you’re thinking of the impact of this technology, thinking small is what you should do. Electric cars don’t need this technology, they need something with higher energy density than this provides (this technology basically only provides lithium battery energy densities, which we already have for electric cars, and which isn’t enough). But an ultra-thin electronic device… you just *know* that Steve Jobs could have thought of half a dozen possibilities for making really thin gadgets out of this stuff. Or even real e-paper that’s, like, actually like paper…
Wow.I wonder where they will be used. Badtux is probably right on that.
Actually, I was personally thinking about solar cells with their own batteries on the back, but small devices would obviously be the first to be targeted commercially. Room for the battery and the cost of designing batteries for devices is a drag on new products.
Still, the thought of an electric car that didn’t act like a pick-up with an empty bed is appealing.