Despite progress in energy storage technology, batteries still make up a significant part of the weight for devices such as laptops and even cars. Rather than focussing solely on the battery technology to tackle lightweight demands, Leif Asp at Chalmers University of Technology alongside a broad team of researchers in Sweden, Italy and France report in Multifunctional Materials that exploiting the electrochemical properties of carbon fibres could drop device masses by as much as 50%.
The mechanical properties of carbon fibres have been well understood for several decades, with a lot of seminal work dating back to the 1980s. While more recent, the promising electrochemical properties of carbon fibres have also been known since the late 2000s. However, no-one had looked into how to make carbon fibres that were stiff and strong while simultaneously demonstrating high-performance electrochemical properties, a gap in the knowledge that may be attributable to the nature of the research environment around carbon fibres. “When it comes to carbon fibres, knowledge is kept in the companies,” says Asp. “Few research groups are working on it.”
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