• WaterWaiver@aussie.zone
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    6 months ago

    There have been constant news articles coming out over the past few years claiming the next big thing in supercapacitor and battery technologies. Very few actually turn out to work practically.

    The most exciting things to happen in the last few years (from an average citizen’s perspective) are the wider availability of sodium ion batteries (I believe some power tools ship with them now?), the continued testing of liquid flow batteries (endless trials starting with the claim that they might be more economic) and the reduction in costs of lithium-ion solid state batteries (probably due to the economics of electric car demand).

    FWIW the distinction between capacitors and batteries gets blurred in the supercapacitor realm. Many of the items sold or researched are blends of chemical (“battery”) and electrostatic (“capacitor”) energy storage. The headline of this particular pushes the misconception that these concepts can’t mix.

    My university login no longer works so I can’t get a copy of the paper itself :( But from the abstract it looks first stage, far from getting excited about:

    This precise control over relaxation time holds promise for a wide array of applications and has the potential to accelerate the development of highly efficient energy storage systems.

    “holds promise” and “has the potential” are not miscible with “May Be the Beginning of the End for Batteries”.

    • 1111@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      |My university login no longer works so I can’t get a copy of the paper itself :(

      Scihub my brother 🙏

      • smpl@discuss.tchncs.de
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        6 months ago

        Sadly Sci-Hub has not received updated articles in several years. Alexandra is waiting for the outcome of the trial in India. I don’t think it depends on what the outcome is, just that the trial needs to be over.

        • Turun@feddit.de
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          6 months ago

          We have the internet man, just bug another human and wait a few days to hear back from them.

          Like I know that’s what you are “supposed” to do. But public money public knowledge, I refuse to accept that this is somehow an acceptable state of things.

    • This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      There have been constant news articles coming out over the past few years claiming the next big thing in supercapacitor and battery technologies.

      More like decades. Anyone remembers buckyballs and buckytubes? What happened to that?

      • davidgro@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Nanotubes are still a thing, but most of the hype now seems to be around ‘buckysheets’ (graphene)

        • mriguy@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          There’s an old saying: “Graphene is so versatile it can do anything except leave the laboratory”.

          • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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            6 months ago

            To paraphrase one of society’s less brilliant thinkers, “Who would have thought heathcare advanced materials science could be so hard?”

        • someacnt_@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I heard that nanotubes are being used in strengthening various materials. But yeah, not world-changing

    • aleph@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Yup. How long have we been waiting for graphene batteries to revolutionize technology? About a decade now?

      • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        …and the same obstacle that faced graphene a decade ago is the same seemingly insurmountable obstacle facing it today.