It's all in the surface: Transmission electron microscope image showing individual scrunched-up graphene sheets extending from a chemically modified graphene particle surface.
Credit: Rod Ruoff, University of Texas at Austin
"Major boon"
While graphene ultracapacitors may be used in any system requiring energy storage, they may be especially useful in renewable energy devices, said Ruoff. Electricity could be stored when the wind is blowing or the Sun shining, and saved for night-time or a still day when no power is being generated.
Graeme Bethune a spokesperson for EnergyQuest, an energy advisory firm based in Adelaide and Melbourne, said that "any cost-effective way of storing electricity would be a major boon."
He noted that, in Australia, wind only contributes energy around nine per cent of the time that it is required, so "cost-effective storage would be a major advance".
Joel Schindall, an electrical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, U.S., and expert in ultracapacitor technology, called the work "credible", and added that graphene "does seem to exhibit some very promising properties."
