Carbon Nanotube Technology Provides 10x More Power than Conventional Lithium-Ion BatteriesCarbon Nanotube Technology Provides 10x More Power than Conventional Lithium-Ion Batteries

Portable power company Contour Energy Systems (Azusa, CA) has licensed a carbon nanotube technology from MIT (Cambridge, MA) that it claims can deliver 10 times more power than conventional lithium-ion batteries. The technology has the potential to improve numerous products, including portable medical devices.

Contour will build on MIT's technology, which we reported on earlier this year, to optimize the battery electrode. The technology relies on electrostatic-driven self-assembly of carbon nanotubes into a porous, tightly bound structure--a process that is induced by a controlled deposition technique. The ability to yield a porous electrode from charged molecules integrated on the nanotubes is advantageous, according to the MIT researchers, because it provides accessibility to a greater number of nanotubes for lithium-ion storage and release.

"These carbon nanotubes contain numerous functional groups on their surfaces that can store a large number of lithium ions per unit mass," says Shao-Horn, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering at MIT. "For the first time, carbon nanotubes can serve as the cathode in lithium-ion batteries, instead of the traditional role that carbon materials have played as the anode in such systems. This lithium storage reaction on the surface of carbon nanotubes is much faster than conventional lithium intercalation reactions, so [it] can deliver high power."

Supported by the carbon nanotubes, the battery can deliver high power outputs in short bursts or lower power steadily over long periods of time. It also has demonstrated stability, showing no detectable change in performance after 1000 cycles of charging and discharging a test battery, the researchers state.