Yarns of niobium nanowire can make supercapacitors to
provide a surge of energy when it’s needed
(July 8, 2015) Wearable
electronic devices for health and fitness monitoring are a rapidly growing area
of consumer electronics; one of their biggest limitations is the capacity of
their tiny batteries to deliver enough power to transmit data. Now, researchers
at MIT and in Canada have found a promising new approach to delivering the
short but intense bursts of power needed by such small devices.
The key is a new approach to making supercapacitors —
devices that can store and release electrical power in such bursts, which are
needed for brief transmissions of data from wearable devices such as heart-rate
monitors, computers, or smartphones, the researchers say. They may also be
useful for other applications where high power is needed in small volumes, such
as autonomous microrobots.
The new approach uses yarns, made from nanowires of the
element niobium, as the electrodes in tiny supercapacitors (which are
essentially pairs of electrically conducting fibers with an insulator between).
The concept is described in a paper in the journal ACS Applied Materials and
Interfaces by MIT professor of mechanical engineering Ian W. Hunter, doctoral
student Seyed M. Mirvakili, and three others at the University of British
Columbia.