Burning a candle could be all it takes to make an inexpensive but powerful electric car battery, according to new research published in Electrochimica Acta. The research reveals that candle soot could be used to power the kind of lithium ion battery used in plug-in hybrid electric cars.
The authors of the study, from the Indian Institute of Technology in Hyderabad, India, say their discovery opens up the possibilities to use carbon in more powerful batteries, driving down the costs of portable power.
Lithium ion batteries power many devices, from smartphones and digital cameras all the way up to cars and even aircraft. The batteries work by having two electrically charged materials suspended in a liquid to produce a current. Carbon is used as one of those materials in smaller batteries, but for bigger, more powerful batteries – such as those used in electric cars – carbon is not suitable because of its structure, which cannot produce the required current density.
In the new study, Dr. Chandra Sharma and Dr. Manohar Kakunuri found that because of the shape and configuration of the tiny carbon nanoparticles, the carbon in candle soot is suitable for use in bigger batteries. What's more, because the soot could be produced quickly and easily, it is a scalable approach to making batteries.
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