Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: SF Chinese (ID:kexuejiaodian), author: SF

(photo Source: Flickr) in recent years, with the gradual shrinking of global energy reserves and the improvement of environmental awareness of the whole society, new energy vehicles have attracted more and more public attention, and even some countries and regions have made plans to completely cancel the sale of fuel vehicles in the future. Electric vehicles have become the most practical class of new energy vehicles, and have been widely used in our daily life.

(by Mei Lin / tr. by Robert Taylor)

Visual Design | Xia Meng

As we all know, electric cars need to be plugged in to recharge, but looking for charging posts has become a major factor limiting the use of electric vehicles-friends who have driven electric cars must have had the trouble of "looking everywhere for charging posts". Another factor that limits the use of electric vehicles is its battery life. Compared with fuel-fueled vehicles, electric vehicles have a limited range on a full charge due to the limitation of their batteries. When the electricity runs out, you have to recharge again, which doesn't go back to the problem of "looking for charging piles".

As a result, many scientists are trying to find new ways to supply power-not only to ensure power supply, but also to increase the range of electric vehicles, but also easy to use.

Find another way: supercapacitors instead of batteries you may have found that batteries are the key to improving the usefulness of electric cars. For this reason, scientists mostly focus their attention on the battery. Traditional electric vehicle batteries are located on the chassis of the vehicle, because the chassis space is limited, so the number of batteries is also limited, affecting the range of electric vehicles.

The chassis of the electric vehicle is equipped with engine, gearbox, transmission, suspension and other parts, which is only enough to fit a few batteries. (photo Source: Tennen-Gas) some scientists decided to take a different approach-they envisioned using composite supercapacitors (structural capacitors for short) instead of batteries to power electric vehicles. Compared with batteries, supercapacitors have the characteristics of high charge and discharge rate.

Structural capacitance is a kind of component which integrates load-bearing and energy storage. In other words, this kind of element can not only be used to make the body of the electric vehicle, carry the weight of the body and various parts, but also can be used to store electricity and power the electric vehicle. At present, most studies are limited to theory, and few practical components are made. Through experimental research, these structural capacitors previously designed by scientists perform poorly in terms of mechanical strength and electrochemical performance, and can not meet the needs of power supply for electric vehicles.

Does this mean that this new path will not work and that it will not even pass the test? In fact, there is no need to be so pessimistic. Scientists from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Southern University of Science and Technology have found a solution to the problem.

The poor performance of the previously designed structural capacitors is due to the fact that the mechanical properties and ionic conductivity of the materials used to make structural capacitors can not meet the needs. In order to solve this problem, the research team designed a new structure: using a gel electrolyte with high ionic conductivity and a specially treated carbon cloth (a carbon fiber fabric) charging electrode to make a flexible energy storage device with structural capacitance; then stacked and alternately placed with the epoxy resin material (providing mechanical support), and the carbon fiber structural capacitance will be made when the epoxy resin is cured.

Schematic diagram of the preparation process of carbon fiber structural capacitors. (photo Source: Elsevier) in order to test the performance of this carbon fiber structural capacitor, the research team did a mechanical-electrochemical double-field coupling test on the structural capacitor, that is, to test the electrochemical performance under the action of external force, in order to explore the stability of the electrochemical performance of the structural capacitor under external force. The experimental results show that the charge-discharge performance of carbon fiber capacitors is very stable under both static and dynamic loads, which can meet the design needs of the combination of load and energy storage.

The electric car of the future is itself a "battery"? This research is still in the stage of laboratory research and conceptual design, and theory should be combined with practice. Does such basic research have practical significance? In fact, there is still a long way to go before this research results guide the practice of electric vehicle design and manufacturing.

Moreover, a variety of new materials emerge in endlessly, but there is still some lack of research on flexible electrolytes, such as how to balance mechanical strength and ionic conductivity, scientists need further research. In addition, it is also important to improve the capacity of structural capacitors to store electrical energy, which, after all, replaces batteries. Generally speaking, this kind of structural capacitor which integrates load-bearing and energy storage has great potential and application prospect.

An electric vehicle model made of carbon fiber structural capacitors (video from the project team)

As mentioned earlier, the greatest feature of structural capacitance is the combination of load-bearing and energy storage, that is to say, the electric vehicle made of this material is itself a "battery".

In the future, structural batteries can be used to prepare all the body structures such as chassis, body, engine cover and so on, so that the body can not only maintain mechanical strength, but also power the electric vehicle-- greatly reducing the overall weight of the electric vehicle. and increase the range of the electric vehicle.

In addition, this structural capacitor can also be used in drones, drones, aircraft, spacecraft, rail transit (such as subway), portable electronic devices (such as mobile phones) and construction.

References:

Https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2022.140222

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