Battery Materials Made Using Crab Shells 42
MTorrice writes "Crab shells usually are just a nuisance that you have to crack and dig through to get the delicious meat inside. But one team of materials scientists thinks the shells could help them fabricate materials for long lasting batteries. The team used the nanostructures (abstract) found in the crustacean shells as templates to make sulfur and silicon electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Sulfur or silicon electrodes have a 10-times greater theoretical energy storage capacity than electrodes used in commercial batteries."
Re:Misleading title (Score:5, Interesting)
The 10x storage also gets me wondering. Does this mean 10x as much energy density per weight, or per volume? A 5-6 pound car battery is still taking up a lot of space. However, a battery that takes up 1/10 the volume is something that is almost near the level of gasoline for energy density, and has the possibility of completely changing transportation as we know it.
It looks like battery life will be extended by using crab shell designs, which is an important thing.