摘要: |
While working on this story about electrically powered commercial vessels, this headline from Popular Mechanics caught my eye: "The Battery That Will Finally Unlock Massless Energy Storage." What, I wondered, is massless energy storage? It turns out that massless energy storage incorporates what we once called a "battery" into the structure of a vehicle, vessel or aircraft. There is no need for a separate battery, hence the term massless, as the storage of energy adds no weight. It would be as if two-by-fours were also batteries. Indeed, in March 2021, ScienceDaily reported on research conducted at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden on battery technology that included a carbon-fiber negative electrode and a positive electrode made of lithium iron phosphate-coated aluminum foil, separated by a fiberglass fabric, all of which is "impregnated with a structural battery electrolyte for combined mechanical and electrical function." |