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Spray-On Lithium Ion Battery
Rice University grad students have designed a battery that can be sprayed onto a surface.
(Silver-colored panels contain the spray-on batteries covered by a sealant)
The paint contains layers, each representing a necessary component of a conventional battery -- current collectors made in part from purified single-wall carbon nanotubes, a cathode, an anode, and a polymer separator -- as described in a report published today in Nature authored by Rice graduate student Neelam Singh and her team. Spraying the painted battery is a multilayer process, but when you're done, you have a covered surface that stores energy and discharges it when needed -- that is, a battery.
This technology would be perfect for Philip K. Dick's battery-powered comic books from his 1965 novel The Zap Gun, which refers to a battery within the back cover of a magazine.
I can't resist pointing out that this would be a perfect way to store the power from Larry Niven's sprayable solar power cells - black power - from his 1995 story The Woman in Del Rey Crater.
Via Cnet; thanks to Joe for the tip.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/28/2012)
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