Hasta La Ideas

Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY have developed a new energy storage device that easily could be mistaken for a simple sheet of black paper. The nano-engineered battery is lightweight, ultra thin, completely flexible, and geared toward meeting the trickiest design and energy requirements of tomorrow’s gadgets, implantable medical equipment, and transportation vehicles. The device can be rolled, twisted, folded, or cut into any number of shapes with no loss of mechanical integrity or efficiency. The paper batteries can also be stacked, like a ream of printer paper, to boost the total power output. The device is also unique in that it can function as both a high-energy battery and a high-power super-capacitor, which are generally separate components in most electrical systems. Details of the project are outlined in the paper “Flexible Energy Storage Devices Based on Nano-composite Paper” published Aug. 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.brbr