Electric Cars To Be Powered By Own Panels Using Supercapacitor Films - QUT Research

If you are curious about the research in the field of electric cars, here's something to truly dazzle your brain. A team of researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has achieved a breakthrough in nanotechnology that makes it possible for an electric car to be powered using its own body parts/panels. With the help of light weight super-capacitors that the team has developed and the regular batteries in-use today, the electric cars will be able to derive a significant boost in power. The researchers from QUT along with PhD scientists from Rice University in Houston, US built these super-capacitors featuring two all-carbon electrodes with electrolyte in-between them into a thin but strong high-power density film. This film could be integrated within a car's doors, floor, roof, bonnet and other body panels so as to store enough energy that can be used for turbocharging an electric car's battery in a matter of few minutes.

In order to give our future electric cars the much-need boost of extra energy for acceleration, the super-capacitor film are truly one of the best options available, thanks to its properties. The supercapacitors are an ideal complement for the mass storage batteries as they possess a limited amount of charge and are able to deliver high-output in a very short amount of time. If we compare that with a standard batteries, the supercapacitors provide considerably faster rate of acceleration and charging time for the electric cars.


Though we currently use supercapacitors in combination with Li-ion batteries to power electric cars, the focus here is on making the cars entirely powered using supercapacitors located in the electric car's body panels. Once they accomplish that, the electric cars will be able to run up to 500 km on a single recharge (which is equal to a fuel-powered cars & double the limit of electric-powered cars).

The technology isn't limited to use in electric cars. In fact, if used on the rear panels of our smartphones and tablets, they could get charged within seconds. The interesting part is, these supercapacitor panels are being developed using cheap carbon materials and therefore have significant positive impacts on environment as well as financially. This means, once in production they could serve as a game changer for the automobile industry.

The results of this research were published in the Journal of Power Sources and the Nanotechnology journal and the team believe that it could be a reality to have these films installed in the car's panels within next five years. What are your thoughts on that? Share with us in comments below.

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