Graphene SuperCapacitor Breakthrough Is FINALLY Here!

So much of our future will require storing large amounts of energy. Whether it's renewable energy like wind and solar, or electric vehicles, energy storage is the key technology of the decade. There hasn't really been any competition to the chemical lithium-ion battery that we know and love, until now. Capacitors aren't new, and they are terrible at storing large amounts of energy. But how can graphene take capacitors to supercapacitors, and can they really be a game-changer in the future of energy? Let's take a deeper dive today on Two Bit da Vinci.

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Graphene SuperCapacitor Breakthrough Is FINALLY Here

#supercapacitor #graphene #graphenebattery #batterybreakthrough #graphenecapacitor #capacitor

[James_Ryan]

This will be a game-changer for electric subway trains that use friction-braking to decelerate (in some places the third-rail doesn't support regen-braking) - no more PM2 dust!

[SkepticalCaveman]

Supercapacitors are the perfect buffer for batteries. Supercapacitors can enable faster charging by evening out the charging curve, absorb more energy from regen, faster acceleration. Especially city driving will benefit *a lot* from supercapacitors.

Only a few percent of the battery need to be replaced by supercapacitors, and lower performance battery technology like LFP benefits even more by them.

[imacmill]

_This Graphene SuperCapacitor Breakthrough is HUGE!_

No it's not, Amber.

[lukeskywalker]

Trican uses their automotive version to start 16L engines. I have personally installed them about 200 24V skeleton caps in the past year and they all work great 👍

[junkerzn]

Supercaps are a pretty cool technology. We incorporated some of the very first high-capacity capacitors a few decades ago... a whole 1F. We used them to backup static ram chips and real-time clocks. They could keep them going for a week(!). That way, no lithium battery on the board that would have to be replaced every 5 years.

These days 100F is common. The problem is still storage density, though. I can see them being used, in particular, in energy recovery systems. But I think we are a long ways away from being able to replace chemical batteries.

-Matt

[jonjohns]

I sometimes feel like Graphene is becoming the Fusion energy of the Materials world, we know how to make it, we know it has revolutionary potential, but we JUST CAN'T QUITE FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT COMMERCIALLY VIABLE!! It's Very Maddening!!

[WileHeCoyote]

I thought there was nothing more to know about the state of graphene super capacitors, but this was the most clear, to the point, no bs, honest truth and realistic use case graphene video I've seen, ...and I've literally seen them all!

[Erik_Swiger]

One of my Star Trek-ian dreams is lightning rods, with giant high-speed switching arrays, and banks of supercapacitors, to absorb the energy of lightning bolts. Lightning strikes 50-100 times per second, somewhere on the Earth. If we only had a network to absorb and distribute the energy around the globe....

[sleeplessstu]

Nobody ever seems to mention the dramatic potential of super capacitors to enhance hill climbing in EV’s and hybrid vehicles. In normal driving, going up hills sucks battery capacity more than anything else. This would be the perfect time for an electric motor to get that quick burst of energy to get up a hill and saving the battery for flatter terrain. Combined with a stored digital terrain map, the energy management system could tell a car when to pull from the capacitor when it’s about to go up a hill.

[SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

You went with this video exactly where I was thinking: combo of super capacitors and batteries is best depending on the niche problem being addressed.

So great to see some level headed thinking on YT rather than more blind hype saying that we found a “one size fits all” solution for all our problems!

[Xeroof]

Hmm. What would be amazing is if we could find an near-perfect insulator that's also 1 atom thick. Li Ion batteries are made as a 'jelly roll', meaning there's one long strip of lithium on a substrate that is then rolled into a barrel. The problem with a graphene supercapacitor is that the stuff between the graphene isn't 1 atom thick. If we can find that 1-atom-thick insulator and find a way to bond it to a single layer of graphene, stack two of them and then roll all of that together in a jelly roll, then we'd have a super capacitor that's on par or better than standard Li Ion batteries.

[patrickdegenaar]

Very good point about buffering! All it takes is for someone to turn on a shower or kettle during peak load to stress out a home battery.

[surferdude]

Thank-you for being real and clear about what capacitors can do. I've had people trying to tell me that ultra-caps are achieving the same energy density as LI batteries. I simply told them, "I don't think so.". But, here's the proof.
Yes, I think it's a good idea to use them to take up the surge from starting and stopping a vehicle, but not as a substitute for main energy storage.

[jasonbroom]

Super caps on Perovskite solar panels? That could really make a huge difference in the potential on every roof.

[TedToal_TedToal]

I’m glad to see that you did a video on supercapacitors, I’ve been thinking they have tremendous potential that hasn’t been much talked about. Regarding ludicrous mode, it seems to me that they might be useful even in regular driving. When you accelerate from a stop, even if not accelerating rapidly, you’re still using more power than when you’re going along at a steady pace. If super capacitors provided the extra energy for acceleration from a stop, perhaps battery packs could last longer and maybe the electronics connecting the battery pack to the motor could be simpler.

[joelado]

If you look at the energy demand of an electric vehicle you will see that from stop to moving is where most of the energy is used. It follows the Newton's law that basically says an object at rest remains at rest. Going from rest, that is not moving, to moving has to overcome that inertial force of the object not wanting to move. Capacitors are great at providing bursts of energy, so their use for overcoming inertia is perfectly matched. On the flip side Sir Isaac Newton says something to the affect of an object in motion remains in motion. So, trying to stop a moving object takes a bit of energy as well. Our regular friction brakes work the same way that pressing a stick against a moving wheel eventually stops the wheels movement. It does this by converting the motion of the wheel, its momentum energy, and converting it into heat through friction on the stick. The heat on the stick heats the air around it and the energy that used to be momentum energy has now turned into hot air. This way of braking is completely wasteful. With electric cars we take the momentum energy and convert it into electric energy through the motor by making the motor a generator for this purpose. With lithium batteries the amount of energy that is created by the motor/generator comes too fast for the lithium to do the chemical changes to absorb it all. Here, again is where capacitors shine. They can take in electricity really fast since they use a magnetic field to store electricity rather than a chemical reaction. With the capacitors now charged by regenerative braking, that energy can be used to get the stopped EV moving again. This rocking back and forth from capturing braking energy and then using that energy to get going again means that the batteries will be used mainly to keep the EV going once it is on its way, dramatically increasing its range. And, since the battery won't be discharged and recharged at the high rates that getting going and regenerative braking need, the wear and tear on them will be much less, making them work better and last much longer. Capacitors, supercapacitors and ultracapacitors are great, and should work fine for the stuff I talked about above, but, if graphene capacitors can be made inexpensively, their contribution to this setup, because of how little space they take up could be huge.

[MartinCHorowitz]

Capacitor voltage drops linearly with discharge and supercaps are usually low voltage so a complex DC to DC convertor is required to use them along with battery packs, which usually makes them a consideration for larger systems with batteries, but not smaller ones.

[SoCal_rnr]

Been hearing about graphene and sulfur batteries for years now. When can I open my presents already!?!?! too excited to wait any longer

[tomdalton]

It’s great to see graphene finally starting to scratch the surface of its potential

[dougk]

I am anxious to see electric car circuit races. This will help to refine battery and super capacitor technology.