Imagine being able to dip a piece of paper into a solution made up of nanotubes and microscopic wires and coming away with a super battery that can last through 40,000 charge-discharge cycles. That’s the promise of Stanford University’s Yi Cui, who has developed the basic process and is ready to take it to commercial development. Being able to use ordinary paper as the substrate material for long-use batteries addresses many of the engineering limitations of current battery technologies for the automotive industry, among others. The batteries even work if the paper is crumpled or even soaked in acid. Paper has an advantage over other materials because of its ability to bond with the nanoparticles, but it’s also likely that other materials could be treated with the nano-ink and turned into batteries or supercapacitors.
