Category
Energy
All Nolege News articles on Energy.
3 articles
Energy
A supercapacitor charges in seconds and survives a million cycles. It is still not going in your phone
A supercapacitor stores charge by parking ions against a surface rather than by pushing them into a material, which makes it fast and nearly immortal and also means it holds far less energy. This is the one device where surface area per gram is not an improvement but the entire product.
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Energy
A battery ages even when you never use it. The reason is a film a few nanometres thick
A lithium-ion cell loses capacity on a shelf, not only in a pocket. The reason is a layer that forms on the anode during the very first charge, keeps growing for the rest of the battery's life, and quietly eats lithium the whole time. Understanding it explains almost every piece of battery advice that actually works.
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Energy
How a solar cell turns light into electricity
A solar panel has no moving parts, yet it converts sunlight straight into current. Here is what actually happens inside the silicon, and why no ordinary cell can beat about a third efficiency.
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