RE:OpticallyActive
Your comments are sensible, but your statement: " The patent application is still early in the game and saying that Graphene batteries can potentially outperform conventional batteries is not proven at all at this point in time", The patent application is still early in the game and your statement that Graphene batteries can potentially outperform conventional batteries is not proven at all at this point in time is uninformed. A simple web search on Graphene Batteries will bring you up to date on Graphene Batteries and Fuel Cells. The following is one such data point. Batteries made with graphene on sale in 2014 Posted on February 6, 2014 by Admin The U.S. company CalBattery announces that they will have graphene batteries for sale in 2014 The first news about the possibilities of improving batteries thanks to graphene appeared in December 2011 , thanks to the research of Northwestern University (Illinois ) , which predicted a capacity and charge rate 10 times higher than the silicon and lithium ion batteries. Again , collaboration between research laboratories and private companies has resulted in a practical application of graphene’s properties in a short term. This time, Argonne National Laboratory, from the Department of Energy and the U.S. company CalBattery from California have joined forces and have managed to include graphene on line production of batteries in a stable and lasting way. The battery that will be produced has an energy density of 525 Wh / kg , which is 3.5 times higher than today. For reference, the current lithium batteries have an energy capacity of 140 to 160 Wh / kg , so although they are not the levels achieved in the laboratory, it is a breakthrough . The energy density is related to the amount of lithium ions that can be stored in the anode ( or cathode ) of the battery , and this is increased by avoiding fragmentation of the silicon , they have therefore chosen to combine groups of silicon between graphene sheets , like a sandwich , so that more energy density is achieved than only with graphene , and they absorb the expansion of the silicon without being fragmented. To get an idea of what it means in practice , a car with an autonomy range of 199km would have approximately 650km of autonomy.