Microsupercapacitors

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  • August 18, 2010 at 5:46 pm #883
    Henning
    Participant

    Found an article on a new class of capacitors.

    Ultrahigh-power micrometre-sized supercapacitors based on onion-like carbon

    Electrochemical capacitors, also called supercapacitors, store energy in two closely spaced layers with opposing charges, and are used to power hybrid electric vehicles, portable electronic equipment and other devices. By offering fast charging and discharging rates, and the ability to sustain millions of cycles electrochemical capacitors bridge the gap between batteries, which offer high energy densities but are slow, and conventional electrolytic capacitors, which are fast but have low energy densities. Here, we demonstrate microsupercapacitors with powers per volume that are comparable to electrolytic capacitors, capacitances that are four orders of magnitude higher, and energies per volume that are an order of magnitude higher. We also measured discharge rates of up to 200 V sāˆ’1, which is three orders of magnitude higher than conventional supercapacitors. The microsupercapacitors are produced by the electrophoretic deposition of a several-micrometre-thick layer of nanostructured carbon onions with diameters of 6ā€“7 nm. Integration of these nanoparticles in a microdevice with a high surface-to-volume ratio, without the use of organic binders and polymer separators, improves performance because of the ease with which ions can access the active material. Increasing the energy density and discharge rates of supercapacitors will enable them to compete with batteries and conventional electrolytic capacitors in a number of applications.

    via Ars Technica

    August 18, 2010 at 5:57 pm #7773
    Rezwan
    Participant

    That’s fascinating! This will go a long way toward miniaturization of a dpf. And it also shows that research into renewable energy and electric vehicles has synergy with fusion research.

    August 18, 2010 at 6:57 pm #7775
    emmetb
    Participant

    The next generation of solid state ultra capacitors seems just around the corner. For years now the rumors have been seeping into the blogs (http://theeestory.com/). The patent (applications), the apparent involvement of Lockheed Martin and ARPA… Now imagine if FFeasibility is demonstrated the next year, and at the same time the world would see the first ultracapacitor with power densities rivaling the best of today’s batteries; that would be a very timely arrival indeed…

    August 18, 2010 at 7:08 pm #7776
    Tulse
    Participant

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but the critical part of the capacitor for DPF fusion is the switches, and not the capacitors per se. Smaller capacitors might be a bit cheaper, but they wouldn’t help with the most important part.

    August 18, 2010 at 9:37 pm #7778
    zapkitty
    Participant

    Tulse wrote: Correct me if I’m wrong, but the critical part of the capacitor for DPF fusion is the switches, and not the capacitors per se. Smaller capacitors might be a bit cheaper, but they wouldn’t help with the most important part.

    I believe they’re thinking of the prospects for making DPFs more compact… notice the mass, volume and requisite structural supports of the FFX caps…

    August 18, 2010 at 9:37 pm #7779
    zapkitty
    Participant

    … a ~2 meter sphere could fit in a lot of places a 2 meter x 3 meter cylinder would not fit…

    August 18, 2010 at 10:10 pm #7780
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    If brought into the FFX voltage and or current ranges, it could greatly reduce the number of switches needed. The millions of cycles is sounding a lot better than what’s available today, but billions, or even trillions of cycles- or a cap bank that’s cheap enough to “throw away” (recycle into less-demanding uses) at least once a year is going to make DPF-based fusion generators a LOT easier to sell, imo.

    August 20, 2010 at 10:45 pm #7788
    Allan Brewer
    Participant

    Whilst the current experimental setup definitely needs switches, might it be possible for the final production version to run without switches i.e. continuously and contiguously cycling, so that as one plasmoid detaches, a new discharge starts the axial phase of the following plasmoid?? That would need more parallel capacitors so that the first cycle doesn’t deplete the capacitors, and would result in a faster cycling rate than presently envisaged??

    August 21, 2010 at 5:18 pm #7791
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    Allan Brewer wrote: Whilst the current experimental setup definitely needs switches, might it be possible for the final production version to run without switches i.e. continuously and contiguously cycling, so that as one plasmoid detaches, a new discharge starts the axial phase of the following plasmoid?? That would need more parallel capacitors so that the first cycle doesn’t deplete the capacitors, and would result in a faster cycling rate than presently envisaged??

    We’ll probably always need caps and switches to fire the first shot in a resonant circuit that could eliminate the question of the cap bank’s rated life at any given voltage. How to do that with only one or a handful of FF cores and cap banks will have a lot to do with who leads the initial manufacturing market due to elegant system design producing the reliability and price points required at any point in the adoption timeframe.

    August 22, 2010 at 8:09 pm #7798
    Allan Brewer
    Participant

    Aeronaut wrote:
    We’ll probably always need caps and switches to fire the first shot in a resonant circuit that could eliminate the question of the cap bank’s rated life at any given voltage. How to do that with only one or a handful of FF cores and cap banks will have a lot to do with who leads the initial manufacturing market due to elegant system design producing the reliability and price points required at any point in the adoption timeframe.

    Even without a resonant circuit, if there was a sufficiently high capacitance (say to cover 3 or 4 shots), then a basic switch could be used to start up a single machine, the current would probably ramp up too slowly for plasmoid formation on the first couple of shots, but once the current is up then the machine could perhaps keep cycling contiguously without any hi-tec switches, so that as one plasmoid detaches, a new discharge starts the axial phase for the following plasmoid??

    August 22, 2010 at 8:44 pm #7800
    Rezwan
    Participant

    Allan Brewer wrote: Whilst the current experimental setup definitely needs switches, might it be possible for the final production version to run without switches i.e. continuously and contiguously cycling, so that as one plasmoid detaches, a new discharge starts the axial phase of the following plasmoid??

    What a cool visual.

    August 27, 2010 at 9:47 pm #7938
    vansig
    Participant

    Title: A New Synthetic Test Plant at KEMA High Power Laboratory
    Author: Damastra, GC
    Source: In: Symposium on High Voltage Switching Equipment (1979 : Sydney, N.S.W.). Symposium on High Voltage Switching Equipment 1979: Preprints of Papers. Barton, ACT: Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1979: 3-7

    A 100-/uF,50-kV capacitor bank is used as a current source in combination with a series coil of. 1 mH,giving a 500-Hz ringing discharge […]
    — http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=712896887551897;res=IELENG

    August 28, 2010 at 1:19 am #7940
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    vansig wrote: Title: A New Synthetic Test Plant at KEMA High Power Laboratory
    Author: Damastra, GC
    Source: In: Symposium on High Voltage Switching Equipment (1979 : Sydney, N.S.W.). Symposium on High Voltage Switching Equipment 1979: Preprints of Papers. Barton, ACT: Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1979: 3-7

    A 100-/uF,50-kV capacitor bank is used as a current source in combination with a series coil of. 1 mH,giving a 500-Hz ringing discharge […]
    — http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=712896887551897;res=IELENG

    Good lead, bad link. This may work: http://search.informit.com.au/search;action=doSearch
    =====================
    Edit: No such luck. On both of these links you have to click to the search page and enter High Voltage Switching NOT and leave the second search term blank to find 31 docs pertaining to this piece.

    August 28, 2010 at 2:39 pm #7963
    vansig
    Participant

    *sigh*. if only they could be fined for not using RESTful architecture, we might at least get them to spit out an abstract, reliably.

    I was corresponding with some electronics nerds about FF1’s architecture, and one suggested to try losing the capacitor bank altogether, and turn the system into a resonant circuit. Maybe keep the capacitor bank in, to charge the first shot, but switch it out and power the next shot directly from the collecting coils

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