Hi there.
For anyone reading the post earlier in 2014 (link below).
Renewables Boost? “flow battery technology”.
https://www.greenisp.net/blog/?p=491
This will be of interest to you too.
Graphene is quite an amazing product and is being touted as a new superconductor as well as many other uses, well, we used to think of Hemp as a useful and economic material only a few decedes ago, from hard resins for cars to rope for ships, may it’s time have come again 21st century hi tech?
The waste fibres from hemp crops can be transformed into high-performance energy storage devices, scientists say.
They “cooked” cannabis bark into carbon nanosheets and built supercapacitors “on a par with or better than Graphene” – the industry gold standard. Electric cars and power tools could harness this hemp technology, the US researchers say.
This is what David Mitlin of the American chemical society told NBC News this week.
“Industrial hemp, the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana, can play a role in manufacturing super-powerful supercapacitors for energy storage at a cost that’s far cheaper than graphene, researchers report.
The hemp-based technology took center stage Tuesday at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in San Francisco.
A team led by David Mitlin, an engineering professor at Clarkson University, heated up hemp fibers to create carbon nanosheets that can be used as electrodes for supercapacitors.
Compared with graphene, the hemp-derived carbon is “a little bit better, but it’s 1,000 times cheaper,” Mitlin told NBC News.
So, the renewable energy sector may have the answer to all it’s storage issues in future, cost effective and totally carbon neutral and environmentally friendly.?
Not to undermine the incredible properties of Graphine and the amazing work done by the Manchester UK team, but it may be the Graphine / Hemp link could be ground-breaking stuff?
Watch this space or comment….
More info:
http://phys.org/news/2014-08-hemp-nanosheets-topple-graphene-ideal.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28770876
http://www.graphene.manchester.ac.uk/
Sources: NBC News, BBC News