Miniature super-capacious batteries developed

Would you like to have a smartphone with a battery from which you can “light” a car? And at the same time, so that it charges for a few seconds? Fiction - you say. However, scientists from the University of Illinois have published their work, which gives us hope to see such super-batteries in the future.

This flips the idea of ​​batteries. It can deliver far more power than anyone can imagine. In recent decades, electronics has become more compact. The “thinking” parts of computers have also become smaller. And the batteries are far behind. Our microtechnology can change all this. Now the power supply is as high-performance as everything else.

With modern power supplies, the user has to choose between power and capacity. For some applications, a large amount of energy is needed (for example, when transmitting a radio signal over long distances). Capacitors are able to quickly release it, but at the same time storing it only in small quantities. For other tasks, such as long listening to the radio, you need a large source capacity, which, for example, fuel cells and batteries have. But they give off electricity rather slowly.

The batteries created by the team under the direction of William P. King allow you to create uncompromising batteries that deliver high power while still having high capacity. Moreover, with the help of a simple adjustment of the production process, it is possible to vary the ratio of these parameters.

As you know, the battery efficiency directly depends on the surface area of ​​its electrodes. The team managed to significantly increase it using the following process. First, a polystyrene layer is applied to the glass substrate. Then, electrolytic nickel, which serves as the basis for future cathodes, is "introduced" into this structure, and polystyrene balls are etched. Nickel-tin is applied onto the resulting spongy surface in a galvanic manner - to the anode and manganese dioxide - to the cathode. The whole essence of the process is graphically presented in the following illustration:



In the end, a structure with a huge surface area is obtained, freeing up more free space for chemical reactions.

Scientists managed to create a microbattery format battery. The graph below shows its comparison with a conventional Sony CR1620 battery:



With such batteries, it is possible, for example, to transmit a radio signal 30 times longer than with conventional power sources or reduce the size of the battery by 30 times. In addition, batteries can charge 1000 times faster than modern batteries. Impressive, isn't it?

At the moment, scientists are working on the integration of their batteries with other electronic components, as well as developing a production process that will allow them to be launched into series at an affordable price.