Graphene has, of course, made headlines throughout the scientific world because of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics to two researchers of the University of Manchester in England who pioneered a way of isolating graphene by repeatedly cleaving graphite with adhesive tape.
For years researchers have held out hope that graphene would be the material to pick up the mantle in the electronics industry when silicon hits its limits as the material of choice for making devices smaller, faster and cheaper.
A team of researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology claims to have made a significant advance in that area by developing a technique for creating nanometer-scale graphene ribbons without rough edges.
Researchers in the US have made a graphene-based supercapacitor that can store as much energy as nickel metal hydride batteries but which can be charged or discharged in just seconds or minutes. The new device provides a specific energy density of 85.6 Wh/kg of electrode weight at room temperature and 136 Wh/kg at 80 °C. These are the highest ever energy values reported for electric double layer super capacitors based on nano-carbon materials. The new device has electrodes made of graphene mixed with 5wt% Super P (an acetylene black that acts as a conductive additive) and 10wt% PTFE binder.
This new technology makes for an energy storage device that stores nearly as much energy as in a battery but which can be recharged in seconds or minutes