Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 16 January 2008 15:17
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
On the issue of commercialising nanowire technology, Stanford researcher Yi Cui said that "Given the mature infrastructure behind silicon, this new technology can be pushed to real life quickly", something he is considering through the formation of a company or by working with an existing battery manufacturer to quickly put nanowire batteries into production.
Cui said that manufacturing the nanowire batteries would require "one or two different steps, but the process can certainly be scaled up”, adding that, “it's a well understood process.”
There’s also the ability to give electric cars long life nanowire batteries that can be plugged into a regular power socket for recharging. This helps eliminate the need for primarily petrol engine based electric hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid and most of the others.
Tomorrow’s hybrids are either completely electric cars, or those which use GM’s idea in the concept Volt hybrid (due in 2010) to provide a primary electric engine to drive the car, supplemented by a very versatile and small generator, running on petrol, ethanol, hydrogen and other biofuels to simply act as an electric generator to recharge the batteries.
The nanowire batteries could well be so good that such an additional generator is rendered unnecessary, but in the short term, despite ever higher petrol prices, the widespread availability of petrol in most of the western world is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, making the backup generator a great backup - at least for now.
Stanford researcher Yi Cui suggested that nanowire batteries “could also be used in homes or offices to store electricity generated by rooftop solar panels” – but why stop there?
Anywhere electricity can be generated, it can be stored in these new batteries which use nanotechnology to safely store the energy without fracturing the battery as happened before nanotechnology was employed.
So, just how did Yi Cui and his colleagues figure out how to use ultra modern nanotechnology to make a breakthough that has been 30 years in the making? Please read onto page 3 for the conclusion!
