Paper Batteries to Surpass Li-Ion, Offer 10x Power

With email messages favored over hand-written letters and online news sources being read as opposed to the daily newspaper, those individuals working in pulp and paper mills have good reason to be fearful of the longevity of their employment.

However, these people now have a glimmer of hope for the continued existence of their industry, thanks to modern research that looks to transform ordinary paper into a lightweight battery.

At Stanford University in California, scientists announced the successful creation of the first line of "paper batteries" in existence.

10x The Power of Lithium-Ion Batteries

The process calls for ordinary paper to be coated with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials. The same features that help ink adhere to paper allow it to hold onto the single-walled carbon nanotubes and silver nanowire films. (Source: yahoo.com)

Earlier research found that silicon nanowires could be used to make batteries 10 times as powerful as lithium-ion batteries, which are now used to power devices such as laptop computers.

While paper batteries are not intended to power laptop computers just yet, they do offer promise for new types of lightweight, high-performance energy sources.

Commercialized Usage

Among its predicted uses could be in powering electric or hybrid vehicles. The weight of standard batteries has proved problematic in the commercialization of electric-powered cars and trucks.

The fact that people are in dire need of inexpensive power sources during these tough economic times is echoed in the sentiments of Yi Cui, assistant professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford. Said Cui, "Society really needs a low-cost, high-performance energy storage device, such as batteries and simple supercapacitors."

While the paper batteries can be used "for all kinds of applications that require instant high power", the innovations at Stanford also mark a sign of things to come. If paper batteries are successful in its commercialization, it could lead to all kinds of paper developments in the future including paper electronics. (Source: go.com)

Launch Date Still Not Known

While no shipment date is slated at this time, Peidong Yang, professor of chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley, said that the paper batteries could be commercialized within a "short time".