The rise of supercapacitors: making electric vehicles as convenient as ordinary ones

Abstract

discovered chain-like carbon molecules in interstellar gas clouds. Would it be possible to vaporize carbon on Earth to produce similar molecules and find out what they are exactly made of? this Kroto a very powerful laser that could vaporize almost any known material. know that bring to the three of them Nobel in chemistry. In a series of experiments performed in the autumn of 1985, they simulated the physicochemical reactions that take place in interstellar clouds by applying the power of their laser to the most common form of carbon, graphite. The results were stunning: hitherto unobserved on Earth, and altogether remark-able, carbon molecules were detected. Because of their size, they are usually called nanoparticles. Since then, lots of nanoparticles have been engineered from various physical elements, not only carbon; some of them are endowed with astonishing mechanical, electrical and chemical properties. As far as mechanical strength is concerned, it can be two orders of magnitude greater than it is for steel. Electrical properties beat those of previously known elec-trically efficient materials. The high level of chemical activity is linked to the high surface area to volume ratio that small size entails. In short, one might say that ordinary materials, when embodied at very small scales, display remarka-ble properties that cannot be anticipated at larger scales.