Every now and then, some new technology will pop up, that promises to revolutionise the world of mobile phones. I’d call these big stories. You know the things I mean; cameras popping up on phones, or GPS, or HD video. And then, there are the even bigger stories. You know. The really big ones. The ones that will change mobile phones, but won’t just stop at changing mobile phones.
Yes, I mean the ones that are going to change everything. In the world. Ever. Y’know, like the story I ran about spintronics.
Well, today’s story is another one, because, as the BBC reports, it’s a story about batteries made out of paper. Although, to be fair, it’s not just about paper. It’s just that researchers at Stanford University have used paper as the medium to put the really advanced stuff on, to make the batteries. And what super-advanced stuff are we talking about here?
Quite simply, it’s the thing that is going to change the world completely. And I mean completely.
Yep, the technology on display is my favourite future tech: carbon nanotubes. You may well have heard of them, and if you haven’t, you certainly will, because carbon nanotubes (or CNTs, if you’re lazy) are, without any shadow of a doubt, going to revolutionise… well, everything. Honestly, CNTs are out and out, pure science fiction, but the best bit is, they’re also completely real. Everything is going to change when we fully master the art of using CNTs, and I do mean everything. If you look at the list of potential applications (which, incidentally, are just the ones we’ve thought of so far), it’s truly mind-boggling.
You can make super-thin, super-light speakers out of them, with no moving parts. You can use them as stealth coatings on fighter planes. You can use them as solar cells. You can make waterproof, tear-resistant clothes out of them, which will also, incidentally, be reasonably fire-resistant, and if you mix it with other polymers, bulletproof. Because they’re the strongest material we’ve ever found, and because they are also flexible with electroactive properties, you can make bridges, 730m tall pyramids in Tokyo, and synthetic muscles out of them. And the biggest use, of course, is the one all of us nerds have been dreaming about for years, the space elevator. Yep, an elevator into space, which would give us our first real shot at properly exploring what’s out there.
Basically, take any kind of sci-fi technology, from space elevators, to gigantic mega-buildings, to Robocop, and you’ll find that CNTs would make ‘em possible. Well, alright, maybe not warp engines. I’m relying on the boys at the LHC to take care of wormhole generation and gravity manipulation when they get that big beastie running at full bore…
That brings us back to paper batteries. What you do is get a bit of paper (and yes, that means standard printer paper), and paint it with CNTs. Then you dip it in a lithium-based solution, and an electrolyte, chemical reactions happen, and bingo, the CNTs on the paper get electricity. And voila, you have a paper/carbon nanotube battery, which is lighter than traditional batteries, and has the distinct advantage of being massively more efficient.
Oh, but it doesn’t end there; why stop at paper? How about fabrics made with CNTs? Because if you do that, than you’ve got smart clothes, which can get power from the sun (CNTs are photovoltaic as well), that store power as a giant, wearable battery, and that have nano-scale embedded computer technology more powerful than any current computers. Oh, and that will be waterproof, tear-resistant, heat-resistant, tougher than Kevlar, and which will make you invisible to radar. Basically, your shirt will be smarter and more advanced than you are. And as much I want an HTC HD2 (and I do), and as good as that phone is (ie/ very, very good), CNT tech trumps it in every conceivable way.
Also, good god, the future’s gonna be awesome!
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