paper battery

the same feature that helps ink adhere to paper allows it to hold onto the single-walled carbon nanotubes and silver nanowire films. earlier research found that silicon nanowires could be used
to make batteries 10 times as powerful as lithium-ion batteries now used to power devices such as
laptop computers.

'taking advantage of the mature paper technology, low cost, light and high-performance
energy-storage are realized by using conductive paper as current collectors and electrodes,'
the scientists said in research published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences.

this type of battery could be useful in powering electric or hybrid vehicles, would make electronics
lighter weight and longer lasting, and might even lead someday to paper electronics, the scientists said.
battery weight and life have been an obstacle to commercial viability of electric-powered cars
and trucks.

'society really needs a low-cost, high-performance energy storage device, such as batteries
and simple supercapacitors,' stanford assistant professor of materials science and engineering
and paper co-author yi cui said.

cui said in an e-mail that in addition to being useful for portable electronics and wearable electronics,
'our paper supercapacitors can be used for all kinds of applications that require instant high power...
since our paper batteries and supercapacitors can be very low cost, they are also good for
grid-connected energy storage,' he said.

peidong yang, professor of chemistry at the university of california-berkeley, said the technology
could be commercialised within a short time.