Novel supercapacitor design could store electricity inside a silicon chip
1 min read
In an advance which could see mobile phone batteries recharge in seconds and last for weeks, researchers in the US have developed a supercapacitor made primarily of silicon that has shown much improved power density over its commercially available alternatives.
"If you ask experts about making a supercapacitor out of silicon, they will tell you it's a crazy idea," said lead researcher Cary Pint, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University. "But we've found an easy way to do it."
To begin, Pint and his colleagues coated porous silicon in carbon and heated it to about 800°C. The process formed a layer of graphene only a few nanometres thick that insulated the silicon from the electrolyte while retaining its highly porous structure.
The researchers found that supercapacitor plates were considerably more energy dense (up to 40x) than those made out of pure silicon, and achieved a performance that significantly improved on current commercial supercapacitors.
"All the things that define us in a modern environment require electricity," said Pint. "The more that we can integrate power storage into existing materials and devices, the more compact and efficient they will become."
