Introduction to the principles of graphene batteries

Test for self-charging of graphene batteries using ambient heat

The relationship between time(hours, days) and voltage generation of graphene batteries in saturated copper chloride solutions.

The experimental circuit consists of LEDs that are connected with wires to banded graphene. They simply placed graphene in copper chloride solution for observation. The LED lights are on. In fact, they need six graphene circuits to form a series, so that they can produce the required 2V, so that the LED light can shine, and this picture can be obtained.

Xuzihan and colleagues say that what happens here is that copper ions have a double positive charge and pass through the solution at a speed of about 300 meters per second because of the thermal energy of the solution at room temperature. When ions violently collide into the graphene band, the collision produces enough energy to leave the electrons in place without graphene. Electrons have two choices: they can leave the graphene band, combine with copper ions, or they can pass through graphene and enter the circuit.

It turns out that the moving electrons are faster in graphene than it passes through the solution, so the electrons naturally choose the path through the circuit. It is this point that lights up the LED light. "The electrons released are more likely to pass through the surface of graphene than into the electrolyte. This is how the device generates the voltage, "Xuzihan said.

Therefore, the energy generated by this device comes from the heat of the surrounding environment. They can increase the current by simply heating the solution or accelerating copper ions with ultrasonic waves. Relying on the surrounding heat alone can keep their graphene batteries running for 20 days. But there is also an important question mark. Another hypothesis is that some chemical reaction produces electric currents, like ordinary batteries.

However, Xuzihan and colleagues said they ruled this out because several control experiments were conducted. However, these are described in some supplementary materials that do not appear to be on the arXiv website. They need to go public before someone else makes a serious statement. At face value, this appears to be a very important achievement. Other people also generated electric currents in graphene, but only allowed water to flow through it, so this is not really surprising. Moving ions can also produce this effect. This augurs well for clean green batteries, powered only by ambient heat. Xuzihan and colleagues said: "This represents a huge breakthrough, studying self-driven technology."

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