A pilot production line is in operation in Australia that is able to produce a commercial prototype of a “next generation” graphene oxide-based supercapacitor, a company behind the project has announced.
Australian company First Graphene, formerly First Graphite, said “strong progress” had been made on developing the ‘Bolt Electricity Storage Technology’ (BEST) battery at the country’s Swinburne University of Technology.
First Graphene said the single-layer battery “is able to hold LED light for 15-20 minutes on only several seconds of charging time”— and an eight-layer prototype had been achieved as “scale-up work continues”.
First Graphene said while details of design and construction are being kept under wraps for “commercial security”, the “process of manufacturing the battery involves the use of lasers to create nanopores in graphite-based materials which achieve energy densities more than 10 times as great as the pre-existing technology”.
“This energy storage device promises to be chargeable in a fraction of the time,” the company said. “It will be significantly safer and more environmentally friendly.”
The battery project is backed by investor Graphene Solutions (a joint venture company of First Graphene) and Melbourne electronics company Kremford.
Dr Han Lin (pictured, right), who is leading the project development team with Professor Baohua Jia (left), said of the project last year: “In this process, no ions are being generated or being killed. They are maintained by charge and discharge and are just moved around. Moving ions doesn’t degrade the supercapacitor, so it can charge millions of times, in theory. Usually, a supercapacitor can work for at least 10,000 life-cycles.”