Nanoflowers improve ultracapacitors A novel design could boost
energy storage. By Consulting Specifying Engineer Staff Imagine
a cell-phone battery that recharges in a few seconds and that
you would never have to replace. That's the promise of energy-
storage devices known as ultracapacitors, but at present, they
can store only about 5% as much energy as lithium-ion batteries,
according to a story in MIT’s Technology Review . An advance by
researchers at the Research Institute of Chemical Defense, in
China, could boost ultracapacitors' ability to store energy. A
capacitor consists of two electrodes with opposite charges,
often separated by an insulator that keeps electrons from
jumping directly between them. The researchers have developed an
electrode that can store twice as much charge as the activated-
carbon electrodes used in current ultracapacitors. The new
electrode contains flower-shaped manganese oxide nanoparticles
deposited on vertically grown carbon nanotubes. The electrodes
deliver five times as muc