Could you imagine a laptop battery that lasted for 500 hours? How about an electric car that boasts a range many times that of a gasoline vehicle? For that matter, think about environmental sensors that could be scattered into the air like dust and collect data. While the last thing might not exactly be what you want for Christmas, a breakthrough in energy production made by MIT researchers could make such technology a reality during the next few years.

The process, dubbed “thermopower waves” by its discoverer, MIT’s Dr. Michael Strano, does nothing less than open up “a new area of energy research, which is rare,” says the scientist. MSNBC’s Michelle Bryner describes the phenomenon and its applications in brief, writing:

Researchers have found a way to produce large amounts of electricity from tiny cylinders made from carbon atoms.

The achievement could replace decades-old methods of generating electricity, such as combustion engines and turbines, the researchers say.

The cylinders are known as “carbon nanotubes,” which are, writes The Energy Collective, “submicroscopic hollow tubes made of a ‘chicken-wire-like’ lattice of carbon atoms.”

To describe the process in more detail, the MIT researchers took the nanotubes, applied a layer of fuel, and then ignited them at one end, creating a “fast-moving thermal [heat] wave traveling along the length of the carbon nanotube like a flame speeding along the length of a lit fuse,” explains the Environment News Service (ENS). This process is facilitated by the fact that nanotubes conduct heat far better than metals — up to 100 times faster. Then, getting more technical still, ENS writes, “As the heat feeds back to the fuel coating, a thermal wave is created that is guided along the nanotube. With a temperature of 3,000 kelvins [sic] (2,726 degrees Celsius or 4,940 degrees Fahrenheit) this ring of heat speads [sic] along the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction.”

This is where Dr. Strano and his team experienced their Ivory Soap moment. While Strano claims to be the first scientist to predict that thermal waves coursing through a nanotube could create electric current, the great amount of it yielded was not predicted by thermoelectric calculations. “Lo and behold,” said the scientist, “we were really surprised by the size of the resulting voltage peak.” Strano and his team have called this unexpected phenomenon “electron entrainment,” “since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity,” said Strano.  

Because this energy source is so new, it’s hard to predict what the practical applications will be. However, the thermopower-wave process produces 100 times the energy per unit of weight of the average lithium-ion battery. Additionally, Strano says that such a power source would be composed of non-toxic substances, eliminating the disposal problems posed by current-generation energy cells.

The technology could also be used to help create sensors the size of a grain of rice that could be injected into the body and used to monitor health (e.g., heart function), administer medical treatment or, well, use your imagination. There are some ominous implications as well.

One obvious use of the technology, however, would be to create practical electric fuel cells for automobiles. One common drawback of electric cars is that they typically have a very limited range relative to combustion engine vehicles, owing to the fact that gasoline contains far more energy per unit of weight than today’s electric fuel cells. But thermopower-wave generation could change that, providing light, long-range batteries and relatively inexpensive electricity. This could finally allow us to break our dependence on foreign oil.

Whatever the particulars, Dr. Strano’s discovery is just the latest frontier in the staggering field of nanotechnology. The science of manipulating matter on the molecular and even atomic levels, it is quickly making science fiction, science fact.

Photo: carbon nanotube

For more on the subject, see Selwyn Duke's “The New Nanotech World” in the March 31, 2008 issue of The New American.

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Carlos said:

... ... and it's not going to do anything for breaking dependence on foreign fuel - it can only reduce dependence IF the process is more efficient - in terms of well to wheel. A better battery is still the holy grain - because it's REVERSIBLE (go downhill or brake and you put the energy back).

March 16, 2010

drill battery - batteryexpress.org.uk said:

... wow, sounds great!

March 16, 2010 | url

Jo Watts said:

Wow That is incredible dude. Joe www.anon-vpn.net.tc

March 17, 2010

Cb said:

for all intents and purposes... A means of exploiting fuel that is 100 times more efficient than currently used is, for all intents and purposes, eliminating our need for foreign oil. If 1 barrel of crude would now equal 100 barrels, then the U.S.--or any country, for that matter--could easily meet their own fuel needs. Green house gas emissions would also be greatly reduced. Come on, MIT, hurry up with the technology.

March 17, 2010

Dan B said:

How much of this article is reporting? Kudos to the MIT folks, but there are some missing pieces to the story. They never say what the fuel is, I'm not sure why the asumption was that it's patroleum based. Other flamable fuels exist that are far cleaner than refined patroleum that also come from renewable sources. Also, did the researchers say you could implant a power generator that uses combustable fuel into a human? This could easily be applied to a large scale like a vehicle, but there was no comment about the biproduct of the fuel (can it be sealed?), or about thermal inefficiency (how much power does it lose?). For everybody's sake, I hope this scales up to vehicle size without becoming as ineffienct as an internal combustion engine.

March 17, 2010

Donald said:

... This is a great new source of energy. This will helps lots of peoples.

March 18, 2010 | url

Aeiluindae said:

I wonder... what's the timescale on the practical implementation of this technology? Sounds really good to my uneducated ears.

March 18, 2010

John Monkus said:

owner I wonder if the fuel is hydrogen? Or perhaps mono hydrogen

March 24, 2010

Marathon Simmo, Land of Oz said:

... Remember the old adage people.. If it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is. Whilst I have every confidence that science will indeed lead to major break throughs in the field of power generation & sincerely this might well be one of them, lets have some more facts first before we get too excited.

March 30, 2010

Free Slimming Tips said:

... Yep, if it sounds to good to be true ...

April 13, 2010 | url