Research in the field of batteries: study technologies such airgel and water and sodium ions
The problem of wind and solar - while increasing efficiency - is always the same, the lack of continuity. In fact, the blades of a wind turbine can not run all day, if there is not enough wind or solar panels can store energy in a truly satisfactory if it is cloudy.
To still have energy continuously, even when the system is not fully operational (missing the sun or the wind so to speak), all the energy produced in excess in times of "good" and should be able to be accumulated for this research has been directed toward the improvement of the capacity of batteries and accumulators, however, that in most cases operate at high temperatures and makes its use uneconomical.
Over the years, engineers have tried to make batteries (and rechargeable batteries) with different materials from the mud to coffee, and even water.
The latest development is a potential material with the consistency of frozen smoke, called airgel. Experienced by researchers at the University of Central Florida, is a cluster of carbon nanotubes 'wall', particle thickness thousands of times smaller than a human hair.
Among the lightest solid ever created in the laboratory, the aerogelpossiede a great sensitivity to changes in temperature and pressure, so that the researchers think that has a huge capacity to store energy than conventional batteries. There are already those who are thinking to practical applications, such as the use of airgel for the 'super-capacitors', where the structure of carbon nanotubes on the wall allow you to download huge amounts of energy in short bursts.
Even in Australia a 'team of the Murdoch School of Chemical and Mathematical Sciences has identified a new type of battery power: iodic water and sodium, frugal, eco-friendly and high level of efficiency! In fact, the engineers have verified that sodium has properties similar to lithium, the most common material used today for electric car batteries. So the salt batteries would be perfect to store the energy stored by solar panels or wind turbines.
The next step was to find the cathodes and anodes can accommodate ions of sodium, 2.5 times larger compared to lithium. Situation resolved identifying respectively the manganese dioxide and the olivine with sodium phosphate. Once you have placed all the pieces, the experiment gave the expected results, to storage temperatures significantly lower, compared to the expensive and impractical batteries in molten salt or molten sulfur of the previous experiments.
Could be an important step forward in the strategies of 'accumulation' of energy from renewable sources, to preserve increasing amounts of energy and make it available on the net.
05/10/2012
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Translated via software
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Source:
Italian version of CercaGeometra.it