# Graphite + water = the future of energy storage



## Damn_Smooth (Jul 17, 2011)

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-graphite-future-energy-storage.html



> Dr. Dan Li, of the Monash University Department of Materials Engineering, and his research team have been working with a material called graphene, which could form the basis of the next generation of ultrafast energy storage systems.
> “Once we can properly manipulate this material, your iPhone, for example, could charge in a few seconds, or possibly faster.” said Dr. Li.



This is amazing if it works. It could change everything. I just want to know why they haven't been studying graphite way before this.


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## NC37 (Jul 17, 2011)

Interesting. I wonder what the total cycle count would be. I'm kinda more interested in the self charging tech being developed. But that being adapted into consumer devices or even being available to the public is likely many years off. This might make it to market faster if it gets enough support.


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## Damn_Smooth (Jul 17, 2011)

If it's anywhere near as easy as they make it sound, this should be here really soon.


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## entropy13 (Jul 17, 2011)

Isn't future processors also plan on using graphite/graphene instead of silicon?


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## Damn_Smooth (Jul 17, 2011)

Yes, and that is supposed to bring a speed increase far greater than anything we have seen before.


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## micropage7 (Jul 17, 2011)

good news at the right time when we are running out fossil energy


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## W1zzard (Jul 17, 2011)

graphene & carbon nanotubes have been an active field of research for many years. they have kinda magical properties, but research is still in its infancy


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## Damn_Smooth (Jul 17, 2011)

I can't wait until the research turns in to actual use.


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## entropy13 (Jul 17, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> they have kinda magical properties, but research is still in its infancy



"Magical"... "in its infancy"... WTF is Apple doing then??? Why aren't they helping the researchers? Aren't they the premier magical corporation of the world?


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## GSquadron (Jul 17, 2011)

Very interesting, but they wont show up after the reserves of ion in the earth have been depleted.
Scientists know these things so there is no objective discussing.


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## W1zzard (Jul 17, 2011)

umm ions are normal atoms with electron count != proton count -> positive or negative charge


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## cheesy999 (Jul 17, 2011)

entropy13 said:


> "Magical"... "in its infancy"... WTF is Apple doing then??? Why aren't they helping the researchers? Aren't they the premier magical corporation of the world?



that's their marketing department your thinking of, they'd never do anything that has a chance of improving people's lives


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## entropy13 (Jul 17, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> that's their marketing department your thinking of, they'd never do anything that has a chance of improving people's lives



They already have the iWater, all we need now is the iGraphite.


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## RejZoR (Jul 17, 2011)

Time to make an iPatent and make the end of i patents forever lol...

I'd love to see a 10 second recharge battery with capacity to fuel a smartphone for a month and a laptop for a week. Hell i'd even be perfectly happy with a 10 minute full recharge.


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## pantherx12 (Jul 17, 2011)

Aleksander Dishnica said:


> Very interesting, but they wont show up after the reserves of ion in the earth have been depleted.
> Scientists know these things so there is no objective discussing.





Shit me that would take a while dude


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Jul 17, 2011)

entropy13 said:


> "Magical"... "in its infancy"... WTF is Apple doing then??? Why aren't they helping the researchers? Aren't they the premier magical corporation of the world?



you are joking arent ya, apple are still here sellin old socks for double the doe with not an inovation in tech to their name and that wont change as apple = poo ple



Aleksander Dishnica said:


> Very interesting, but they wont show up after the reserves of ion in the earth have been depleted.
> Scientists know these things so there is no objective discussing.



you need a better spell and grammer  + wtf you on about checker thats damn near sig worthy again, any molecule can afaik be turned into an ion are you on about iron??                    ion = charged particle

im a mass spec tech so that i know


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## The_Ish (Jul 17, 2011)

In the end, all research is dependent on the made up stuff that is money.


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## Mussels (Jul 17, 2011)

this is the tech electric cars are waiting for.


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## RejZoR (Jul 17, 2011)

It will hopefully be much cleaner than transporting raw material for Li-ion/NiMH cells across entire world and then crowning cars using that stuff as the cleanest option...
Because in this case we're basically talking about two most abundant elements, water and carbon. Not sure what kind of side products will be made during manufacturing process of such cells though.


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## Funtoss (Jul 17, 2011)

i would totally get an electric car


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Jul 17, 2011)

combined with a constant trical charge sytem this could be even more amazin


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## Drone (Jul 17, 2011)

Graphene, photovoltaics, betavoltaics ... there's a lot of cool things are yet to come.

Btw I found articles how researches want to use graphene in non-volatile memory devices.



> This invention utilizes graphene which has a low power consumption compared to NAND and it is also capable of realizing multi-bit-per-cell data storage applications.



http://ilo.technologypublisher.com/technology/4395
http://www.memristor.org/news/653/mram-spram-solar-graphene-nvram-memory
http://www.materialsviews.com/details/news/1079535/Graphene_Logic_Gates_Low_Power_High_Gain.html


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## Steevo (Jul 17, 2011)

Then again we were supposed to have buckyball C-60 oils and all sorts of other nanotube superconductors by now.


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## RejZoR (Jul 17, 2011)

In 15-20 years time is my estimation. They are not going to ditch current milking technologies. We could just skip everything known today and release 10GHz graphene CPU's. But why do that if you can make 300 iterations of 200MHz steps, slightly smaller manufacturing processes, make some more 100MHz refreshes of existing stuff. And before you know it, 10 years go by. And they make a fortune out of it. our civilization could be far more advanced already if we weren't bond to the stupid money.
There is even a point where something gets so advanced that money will become a menaingles thing. They'll probably "invent" something else at that point to restrain ourselves.


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## DaedalusHelios (Jul 17, 2011)

This tech is nowhere near production. They have no idea how to make these pure carbon structures on a large scale yet. We have known the properties of these structures for quite some time like with buckminsterfullerine. Figuring out how to produce large quantities of it is the struggle right now. Then after they figure out how to do so then they will have to work on how to make connecting structures out of it after they have the pieces to make something. Assemble it with nanomachines? Working with it to create something useful is far off sadly.


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## PopcornMachine (Jul 17, 2011)

Some words of concern.

What we have done in the past is adopted energy solutions without considering the waste consequences. Such as batteries and nuclear material.  "Gee, this works great.  What do we do with this stuff.  Oh we'll worry about that later. We're making a lot of money now."

Indefinite lifespan is encouraging, and it seems that a substance made of water and graphite would be fairly biodegradable, but does anyone know for sure.

More importantly, what will those running the Uranium/Nuclear industry think about this?  My guess is they will do everything in their power to stop it, and they have the power to do so.  We live in a capitalist world where what is best for the powerful rich is paramount.


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## W1zzard (Jul 17, 2011)

PopcornMachine said:


> More importantly, what will those running the Uranium/Nuclear industry think about this?



this technology does not have to do anything with energy "production". it is for storage and transport.

power plants will put power into the grid, you connect your car to the grid and put their power into your car


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## PopcornMachine (Jul 18, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> this technology does not have to do anything with energy "production". it is for storage and transport.
> 
> power plants will put power into the grid, you connect your car to the grid and put their power into your car



I guess I was thinking of this type of technology as answer to those who say solar energy won't work because there is no where to store it.

That could then mean a change in types of production.


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## Drone (Jul 18, 2011)

PopcornMachine said:


> I guess I was thinking of this type of technology as answer to those who say solar energy won't work because there is no where to store it.
> 
> That could then mean a change in types of production.




Wrong. Solar energy can be stored. Hell, even chemical reaction energy can be stored.


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## PopcornMachine (Jul 18, 2011)

Drone said:


> Wrong. Solar energy can be stored. Hell, even chemical reaction energy can be stored.



Yeah, I know.  But that's what people always tell me anyway.  It's as if they don't want solar energy to work.

If there is a way to store it, then why aren't we using it?


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## mrw1986 (Jul 18, 2011)

The company I work for has been researching nano technology for some time and a big part of what we research is carbon nanotubes.

I wish I could answer some questions, I'm just simply an IT Specialist there >.<

I can tell you I have seen some of the stuff they have produced first hand...it's awesome...I just can't go in to detail.


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## Damn_Smooth (Jul 18, 2011)

mrw1986 said:


> The company I work for has been researching nano technology for some time and a big part of what we research is carbon nanotubes.
> 
> I wish I could answer some questions, I'm just simply an IT Specialist there >.<
> 
> I can tell you I have seen some of the stuff they have produced first hand...it's awesome...I just can't go in to detail.



Tease. :shadedshu


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## mrw1986 (Jul 18, 2011)

damn_smooth said:


> tease. :shadedshu


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## Damn_Smooth (Jul 18, 2011)

I guess I can't blame you. It's not worth being unemployed to say things on the internet.


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## mrw1986 (Jul 18, 2011)

Damn_Smooth said:


> I guess I can't blame you. It's not worth being unemployed to say things on the internet.



Heh, exactly  Took me too long to find this job!


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## Drone (Jul 18, 2011)

PopcornMachine said:


> Yeah, I know.  But that's what people always tell me anyway.  It's as if they don't want solar energy to work.
> 
> If there is a way to store it, then why aren't we using it?



Nice question. People need to fund these studies because it's important. Plus solar energy idea is as old as dirt.

Here's a nice way to store solar power:



> An unprecedented process allows the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.



http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

Liquid batteries can also store solar energy:

http://www.physorg.com/news155569564.html


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## Mussels (Jul 18, 2011)

PopcornMachine said:


> Yeah, I know.  But that's what people always tell me anyway.  It's as if they don't want solar energy to work.
> 
> If there is a way to store it, then why aren't we using it?




let me phrase it another way: are we storing nuclear energy? hydroelectric? wind turbine?


none of the major energy producers store it long term, it doesnt work that way. solar can give us power whenever it has sunlight, the problem is that its no good as a permanent power source since we have things called night time and clouds.


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## PopcornMachine (Jul 19, 2011)

Mussels said:


> let me phrase it another way: are we storing nuclear energy? hydroelectric? wind turbine?
> 
> 
> none of the major energy producers store it long term, it doesnt work that way. solar can give us power whenever it has sunlight, the problem is that its no good as a permanent power source since we have things called night time and clouds.



Shocking.  Night and clouds.  Never heard of them. 

So, back to my point about this kind of technology, which the original article states



> A combination of two ordinary materials – graphite and water – could produce energy storage systems that perform on par with lithium ion batteries, but recharge in a matter of seconds and have an almost indefinite lifespan.



could change the idea that solar is no good because it can't be stored.  Read the line again that states indefinite lifespan.

But I'm sure we're all better off will nuclear power plants the waste they produce.  Uranium miners sure think so.


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## Steevo (Jul 20, 2011)

Solar as a heat condensed source can be stored for continued energy output. Much the same way the earth stores heat so we don't freeze at night.

Geo power, solar, wind and other sources can be harnessed efficiently, except people need to get out of the way with their goddamn solar panels. 200W per square meter of sunlight in the desert and heat conversion is much more efficient than expensive solar panels, and they use the same end as do coal and other plants, steam turbine that are achieving more efficiency.


Solar panels are for your camper, a remote low powered non-critical system, a watch or calculator. Not to power your home. We have infastructure for power distribution, adding pollution to another country to manufacture, transport, install, maintain and replace is NOT the end result we need.


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## Platibus (Jul 20, 2011)

I read in an article that chips made with graphene don't ever get hot, because the generated heat is immediatly dissipated. Now that's something I want to see. I just hope I can make enough money when I start working to be an enthusiast like most of you are. \m/


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## GSquadron (Jul 20, 2011)

> you need a better spell and grammer  + wtf you on about checker thats damn near sig worthy again, any molecule can afaik be turned into an ion are you on about iron?? ion = charged particle
> 
> im a mass spec tech so that i know



If u have a better knowledge of what happens on earth, than u know that cars can use water instead of diesel. 
But all know that if u use water.... game over for u.

Same thing for this.


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## Thatguy (Jul 20, 2011)

Mussels said:


> this is the tech electric cars are waiting for.



Generate the power first, then we can talk about the cars becoming electirc.


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## Peter1986C (Jul 21, 2011)

Thatguy, this is a moment at which I completely agree with you. The electrical vehicle is not better than current burning engine based transport, as long as the electricity we use is made almost entirely with nuclear and fossil fuels.


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## Thatguy (Jul 21, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> Thatguy, this is a moment at which I completely agree with you. The electrical vehicle is not better than current burning engine based transport, as long as the electricity we use is made almost entirely with nuclear and fossil fuels.



we need to get more efficinecy out of the fuels.


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## Peter1986C (Jul 21, 2011)

BTW, a major supermarkets owning company in the Netherlands mixes that (methane from organic source, which is literally bullshit) with the diesel used for their supply trucks. Which is ATM a better solution than going electric.


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## Thatguy (Jul 21, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> BTW, a major supermarkets owning company in the Netherlands mixes that (methane from organic source, which is literally bullshit) with the diesel used for their supply trucks. Which is ATM a better solution than going electric.



Sounds like A-Hold corporation ?


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## Peter1986C (Jul 21, 2011)

No, actually their major concurrent in the Netherlands (Jumbo supermarkets).


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## bostonbuddy (Jul 22, 2011)

If cars ever go electric large scale in the US we'll have to turn to nuclear, I vote for making one of those shitty states like OK one giant nuclear facility that can power the country.


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## Peter1986C (Jul 22, 2011)

With Death Valley as a location for an extra-well "shielded" subterranean nuclear waste storage bunker? 
I think you may be right due to the extreme electrical power demands e-cars may generate in the US, though I sincerely hope there is a better solution by the time.

Edit: Oklahoma appeared to be to far away from DV for quick and safe transport. One would need a plane at that range to carry the load (Silly question: would such a plane act like a nuke when crash landing?).


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## bostonbuddy (Jul 22, 2011)

maybe they can just make a damn working fusion reactor, waste problem solved.


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## ste2425 (Jul 22, 2011)

Mussels said:


> let me phrase it another way: are we storing nuclear energy? hydroelectric? wind turbine?
> 
> 
> none of the major energy producers store it long term, it doesnt work that way. solar can give us power whenever it has sunlight, the problem is that its no good as a permanent power source since we have things called night time and clouds.




but if we had a storage solution that could store huge amounts of energy this storage is what is used and then topped up when it is sunny, that pesky problem of night time solved


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## Thatguy (Jul 25, 2011)

Drone said:


> Wrong. Solar energy can be stored. Hell, even chemical reaction energy can be stored.



lead acid batterys LOL.been storing energy for millenia or more.


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## Thatguy (Jul 25, 2011)

PopcornMachine said:


> Shocking.  Night and clouds.  Never heard of them.
> 
> So, back to my point about this kind of technology, which the original article states
> 
> ...



to provide power for our current rate of consumption plus substitution of current fossil fuel in mobile sources, would require enough solar panel "with current tech" to cover most of arizona. 

  More dense cell tech is needed.


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## Drone (Jul 26, 2011)

New article about graphene, called: *Graphene discovery may lead to faster computers*

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...ery-may-lead-to-faster-computers-2319914.html



> Electronic devices, from mobile phones to computers, could work much faster if they were made from the thinnest substance in the world, scientists from Manchester University have discovered.
> 
> 
> Studies on graphene, a revolutionary material made of a single layer of carbon atoms, have revealed that electrons – subatomic particles that result in electricity – travel many times faster than in silicon, the basis of all modern computer chips.
> ...


 And so on ...


edit: and title of this thread ... it's graphene ...


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## Drone (Aug 8, 2011)

Go, grab some cookies and get your graphene, nao!



> Rice University researchers and members of Girl Scouts of America Troop 25080 confirm the conductivity of graphene made from shortbread Girl Scout Cookies.



Never liked cookies but today!



> Graphene is a new wonder material that’s stronger, more flexible, and more electrically conductive than many other materials, and it could make all our electronics faster. *Now Rice University scientists have proven that you could make the compound from just about anything including a box of Girl Scout cookies.* The sugary delights converted just fine and the researchers estimated that a single box of shortbread cookies could yield $15 billion worth of graphene. With a B. The researches also managed to fabricate high-quality graphene from a variety of materials including chocolate, grass, polystyrene plastic, insects (a cockroach leg), and dog feces.



.... a cockroach leg, yeah that's all I need.

http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=16013&SnID=9216059


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## Damn_Smooth (Aug 8, 2011)

Drone said:


> edit: and title of this thread ... it's graphene ...



Blame the authors of the article. I just copied their title.


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