Battery technology: A pile of wood

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21580441-old-material-may-find-new-use-batteries-pile-wood

by anu_gupta • 13 years ago

55 14 13 years ago

anusinha• 13 years ago

I think the title is an oversimplification.

To test this idea, they used slivers of wood from yellow pines. First, they coated these with carbon nanotubes, to improve their conductivity. Then they applied a film of tin to each sliver.

There's a lot more that is going on than just the wood.

chiph• 13 years ago

Yep. Is it the cellulose (structure), or the lignin (electrolyte)? Or some combination?

aray• 13 years ago

The Economist article title is "A pile of wood", and it actually discusses battery technology, so I think the title isn't bad.

ultramundane8282• 13 years ago

I have a possibly slightly tangential question for the community:

Any solar experts willing to weigh in on the author's assessment of the current state of solar?

Specifically, were a sodium ion battery commercially available (with similar efficiency to lithium ion batteries) tomorrow, would we be living in the golden age of solar energy?

This is something I'm extremely interested in as a citizen of planet Earth.

cinquemb• 13 years ago

Solar is pretty interesting because people (the media) seem mostly fixated on panels where the current potential at bridging the energy gap as far as acquiring and distribution is concerned, seems to be CSP technology.

The storage medium for CSP is typically some kind of molten salt mixture (NaNO3, KNO3, Ca(NO3)2) which is then used on a closed circuit of water to power steam turbines. Right now this is limited to large facilities. In practice, CSP can be done on a small modular scale.

Here's an example of CSP at a large scale in Spain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMWIgwvbrcM There are also other places in world where facilities like these exist.

Here's an example of CSP at a smaller scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SsJBobMpAk However, they use glycol (smaller thermal capacity) as a heat transfer medium instead of molten salt.

As for batteries for devices, that wouldn't necessarily equate to a golden age of solar energy because there is still larger issue of how the energy will get to the device and at what cost.

ultramundane8282• 13 years ago

Thanks for the response! I had known about CSP but didn't think about it in this context, which is a major neglect on my part.

mrinterweb• 13 years ago

I've never understood why hydrogen is not considered as an energy storage medium. Energy produced by solar panels could be used to create hydrogen, via electrolysis, that would later be burned to create energy at night. I guess the risk is that hydrogen is very explosive and maybe it is too difficult to mitigate that risk.

Update: I did find that people are using hydrogen as an energy store. http://schatzlab.org/projects/archive/schatz_solar.html

EdwardMSmith• 13 years ago

It's a storage issue. Storing a useful quantity of hydrogen is very difficult.

cdevroe2• 13 years ago

Is it just me or does this article have zero attribution for the author? I see that it says this was taken from print, but who wrote it?

xal• 13 years ago

The economist has used Editorial Anonymity since 1843 and is edited to read in a single style: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonymi...

Obviously there is plenty of criticism of this practice, even on Wikipedia.

theorique2• 13 years ago

The Economist doesn't have bylines.

cdevroe2• 13 years ago

That would explain it. I'm surprised I never ran across that before. Thanks theorique1

Battery technology: A pile of wood

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