Super capacitor is charged by the warmth of the sun – New Technology

       

Two years later, the polymer researchers at Linköping University SEK 33 million by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. New ways to harvest electricity from the sun’s infrared radiation was one of the goals. They shape today’s solar cells do not convert to electricity. Introducing Xavier Crispin and his research a super capacitor with the capacity to harvest energy from the heat. Or to be more precise, to harvest energy in all situations where there is a temperature difference between two ends of the capacitor. To use waste heat to make electricity is also a possibility.

A super capacitor is a kind of energy storage consisting of an electrolyte between the two electrodes. The charge stored in the carbon nanotubes at the electrodes. One of the physical phenomena that researchers used is that if a superkapacitans subjected to a temperature gradient, that is, one end is hot and the other cold, so rushing ions towards the cold side, and an electric current occurs.

the thermoelectric effect is used to make electricity from heat. The efficiency depends both on the electrolyte used and how the large temperature difference.

Researchers at the Laboratory of organic electronics has for years experimented with liquid electrolytes consisting of ions and conductive polymers. The positively charged ions are small and fast, while the negatively charged polymer molecules is large and heavy. When one side is heated and the other cooled rushing the small fast ions toward the cold side, while the heavy polymer chains remain where they are. Since there are ions and not electrons trapped at the metal electrodes. The charge that arises then is stored in carbon nanotubes adjacent metal electrodes and can be discharged when the electricity is needed.

Three students succeeded after years of fruitless attempts to produce an electrolyte ions and polymers that are 100 times greater capacity to convert heat electricity than the electrolytes normally used.

– yet we do not know exactly why we get this effect. But the fact is that we can convert and store 2500 times more energy than the best of today’s super-capacitors connected to thermoelectric generators, said Xavier Crispin in a press release.

The electrolyte contains only safe, simple and cheap materials stable and can be handled at room temperature. The research has so far resulted in two patents. It is hoped that it will lead to a completely new type of energy storage that can be mass-produced on an industrial scale.

The research results have been published in the scientific journal Energy Environmental Science.