Text 2322, 48 rader
Skriven 2006-06-10 16:15:00 av Robert E Starr JR (2768.babylon5)
Ärende: Interesting technologies.
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Since we've been having a discussion on GW and various energy sources, I 
just thought I'd pass along a few technologies that I ran across that I 
found interesting.

I've seen several write-ups on this one:

1) Capacitors to Replace Batteries?

"MIT's Joel Schindall plans to use old technology in a new way with 
nanotubes. 'We made the connection that perhaps we could take an old 
product, a capacitor, and use a new technology, nanotechnology, to make that 
old product in a new way.' Capacitors contain energy as an electric field of 
charged particles created by two metal electrodes, and capacitors charge 
faster and last longer than normal batteries, but the problem is that 
storage capacity is proportional to the surface area of the battery's 
electrodes. MIT researchers solved this by covering the electrodes with 
millions of nanotubes. 'It's better for the environment, because it allows 
the user to not worry about replacing his battery,' he says. 'It can be 
discharged and charged hundreds of thousands of times, essentially lasting 
longer than the life of the equipment with which it is associated.'"

Apparently the capacitors they've created can be recharged in seconds.  The 
technology is expected to hit the market within 5 years.


2) "New Scientist reports that the Department of Energy has filed a patent 
for hydrogen fuel balls. From the article 'The proposed glass microspheres 
would each be a few millionths of a metre (microns) wide with a hollow 
center containing specks of palladium. The walls of each sphere would also 
have pores just a few ten-billionths of a metre in diameter.' They are 
supposedly safe and small enough to be pumped into a fuel tank in the same 
manner as gasoline."

Not sure what would happen to the spheres afterwards they were used.

These and other such stories can be found here:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=232

Some of the blogging is as/more interesting than the stories.
                                 
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