Paint Power
By tony leather, 1st Jul 2012 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutNewsScience
This inconvenience has been overcome by researchers, who have successfully painted such batteries onto things as diverse glass slides and stainless stee
Paint Power
In an amazing new breakthrough, researchers have developed a strategy for ushering in a new generation of thin, flexible devices, those rechargeable lithium-ion batteries - found in many mobile phones and laptops - perhaps one day becoming spray-painted onto virtually any surface, potentially becoming available in hardware stores to the general public someday.
Most portable electronics nowadays employ Lithium-ion batteries, but the spiral designs limit them to rectangular or cylindrical shapes generally. This inconvenience has been overcome by researchers, who have successfully painted such batteries onto things as diverse glass slides and stainless steel, as well as glazed ceramic tiles and flexible plastic sheets.
Materials scientist at Houston Rice University, Neelam Singh, claims to be able to convert almost any object to a battery, after his team spent many hours formulating paints able to function separate battery components, everything from carbon nano-tubes to ultrafine graphite powders, which they painted in layers - in the proper order - onto various surfaces -creating batteries that worked.
The researchers treated 9 ceramic bathroom tiles, which could then easily power 40 red LED lights, one O battery tile topped with a solar power cell - which helped charge the batteries - meaning that in fact any surface could easily the capability to both harvest and store energy, especially valuable in third world countries.
It is a fact the fabrication of such batteries entails using materials which are not only toxic but also flammable and potentially corrosive, preferably in an environment that is both oxygen and moisture-free at the moment, though the use of oxygen- and moisture-resistant paints, along with safer materials could allow spray-painting of batteries even by the general public.
Comments
1st Jul 2012 (#)
Very good. Still have not received email to verify my email but I am able to comment on everyone elses articles. I guess that is something. This was very good and I really enjoyed it.
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