{"id":2058,"date":"2019-05-26T10:45:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T18:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greentechgazette.com\/?p=2058"},"modified":"2019-05-26T10:45:56","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T18:45:56","slug":"mit-says-nanoscale-batteries-are-faster-and-greener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greentechgazette.com\/index.php\/batteries\/mit-says-nanoscale-batteries-are-faster-and-greener\/","title":{"rendered":"MIT Says Nanoscale Batteries are Faster and Greener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"nanoscale<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As we continue to seek ways to make our\nworld more efficient but also less damaging to the planet, the topic of energy\nusage often comes up. How we power everything from our smartphones to our cars\nhas become a topic of conversation. Indeed, inside all of our smartphones are\ncountless little nanoscale switches \u2013 even one constantly switching on and off.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This allows the phone to operate as it does. All of these transistors, though, are powered using one single battery. While this is hugely impressive already, the development of nanoscale batteries would, MIT suggests, provide even more power and<\/em> greener environmental conditioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge, though, is creating the\ntiny batteries that you would need to make this possible. At the moment, we\nsimply cannot make batteries which are small enough or powerful enough to feed\nevery little switch. MIT, though, believe that this is the direction of travel\nwe should be going in with regards to battery development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes from a new\nMIT study<\/a> at the MIT Lincoln laboratory, and also the MIT Department of\nMaterials Science and Engineering. They\u2019ve managed to make some positive\nchanges to the development of nanoscale hydrogen batteries. These would use\nwater-splitting solutions to help deliver longer battery life, more efficient\ncharging conditions and, most importantly, a reduction in wasted and redundant\nenergy usage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Lincoln Laboratories\u2019\nAdvanced Sensors and Techniques Group\u2019 Raoul Ouedraogo: “Batteries are one\nof the biggest problems we\u2019re running into at the Laboratory,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is significant interest in\nhighly miniaturized sensors going all the way down to the size of a human hair.\nWe could make those types of sensors, but good luck finding a battery that\nsmall. Current batteries can be round like coin cells, shaped like a tube, or\nthin but on a centimetre scale. If we have the capability to lay our own\nbatteries to any shape or geometry and in a cheap way, it opens doors to a\nwhole lot of applications.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\nwould this work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These new batteries would be powered by\nusing charges gained from water molecules in the air. This means that when a\nwater molecule would come into contact with the metal section of the battery,\nit would be split. One part oxygen, two parts hydrogen. When that happens, the\nhydrogen molecules will become tapped into the battery and kept until they are\nneeded. This leaves the battery charged without actually needing to charge it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they need some power for the battery,\nthey just reverse-engineer the process. Combining with the oxygen in the air,\nthe hydrogen would then be released. Already, the creation of batteries thinner\nthan a strand of human hair is taking place. This means that the fear of\nscaling and of excessive size should be able to be overcome in the near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the technology progresses, it will be\nvery interesting indeed to see how this is applied. Within a decade, though, we\ncould see smartphones powered by batteries which are far, far more impressive\nthan the models we work with at present. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we continue to seek ways to make our world more efficient but also less damaging to the planet, the topic of energy usage often comes up. How we power everything from our smartphones to our cars has become a topic of conversation. Indeed, inside all of our smartphones are countless little nanoscale switches \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-batteries"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t