Scientists suggest using hogweed in batteries

Scientists around the world are constantly looking for new materials for the production of batteries. And the use of organic materials is considered a promising direction.

So the scientific team from NUSTMISIS converted fibrous substances from the stem of a weed such as hogweed into electrodes that can be used in supercapacitors. Now I will tell you about this invention in more detail.

What is special about supercapacitors

The main distinguishing feature of supercapacitors is the increased power compared to standard batteries. At the same time, supercapacitors can be charged and discharged almost instantly and withstand an enormous number of charge / discharge cycles.

The increased power is explained by the fact that in classical supercapacitors the electrode is made of activated carbon, the surface of which has a huge number of micropores of various sizes.

Due to the presence of these pores, the area of ​​the electrodes increases manifold, and this parameter directly affects the maximum volume of accumulated charge.

Supercapacitors from hogweed

Engineers NUSTMISIS put forward an extremely curious idea to use such a harmful and even dangerous weed as hogweed as a component for the production of supercapacitors.

The hogweed stems have a fairly hard outer shell and a soft porous structure inside. In order to convert these stems into supercapacitor material, engineers cut the stems into centimeter sticks.

Further, in order to remove inorganic compounds in the workpieces, the bars were treated with hydrochloric acid.

After that, the workpieces were washed well and dried. Further, to obtain carbon material, the prepared stem pieces were saturated with carbon dioxide at a temperature of 400 degrees Celsius.

At the next stage of production, the previously prepared material was combined with potassium hydroxide and the process of opening the pores was carried out at different heating temperatures. Thus, processing at a temperature of 900 degrees Celsius made it possible to obtain a huge number of pores with a diameter of 2 to 4 nanometers.

Tests and prospects of supercapacitors from hogweed

Further tests carried out showed that the hogweed supercapacitors demonstrated about the same power as the classic materials supercapacitors.

Of course, if you use a new and extremely promising material - graphene, then the power will be significantly higher, but the fact the use of organic waste as materials for electronic components is corny more profitable from the economic sides.

From this point of view, the discovery NUSTMISIS has great prospects and deserves due attention in further development.

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