Could Candle Soot Power Electric Vehicles?

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/could-candle-soot-power-electric-vehicles

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Could Candle Soot Power Electric Vehicles?[/font]

[font size=4]New research shows candle soot can power the lithium batteries in electric cars[/font]

Amsterdam, October 7, 2015

[font size=3]Burning a candle could be all it takes to make an inexpensive but powerful electric car battery, according to new research published in Electrochimica Acta. The research reveals that candle soot could be used to power the kind of lithium ion battery used in plug-in hybrid electric cars.

The authors of the study, from the Indian Institute of Technology in Hyderabad, India, say their discovery opens up the possibilities to use carbon in more powerful batteries, driving down the costs of portable power.

Lithium ion batteries power many devices, from smartphones and digital cameras all the way up to cars and even aircraft. The batteries work by having two electrically charged materials suspended in a liquid to produce a current. Carbon is used as one of those materials in smaller batteries, but for bigger, more powerful batteries – such as those used in electric cars – carbon is not suitable because of its structure, which cannot produce the required current density.

In the new study, Dr. Chandra Sharma and Dr. Manohar Kakunuri found that because of the shape and configuration of the tiny carbon nanoparticles, the carbon in candle soot is suitable for use in bigger batteries. What’s more, because the soot could be produced quickly and easily, it is a scalable approach to making batteries.

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[eppur_se_muova]

1. Pretty crappy headline -- soot is being used as a structural component, not a fuel.

The use of the verb "power" here is ill-considered.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Granted, all… without writing a new headline in parentheses I thought it hard to fix

Once again, we prove that scientists don’t write headlines (or press releases for that matter.)

It seemed to me that, since clearly soot is not a power source, people would not take the headline literally.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Yeah, it's hard to fix those sometimes. I have to wonder if ...

the journo who wrote that *genuinely* misunderstands what is going on, though, which is a little bit scary.

My strong reaction is largely based on the fact that it's not like this is the first time carbon, or even nanostructured carbon, has been suggested as an electrode material, so it's a pretty incremental "breakthrough".

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. I believe it is the source (i.e. candles) which is the breakthrough

…

“Generally we overlook the simpler things; candle soot is not new but we’re only now looking at it as a potential source of carbon,” said Dr. Sharma. “We’re very excited about the results. This new approach is very easy and the costs involved are minimal – it would make battery production cheaper.”

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