Concrete may have found it's killer app in graphene. While there is plenty of scientific debate over graphene's actual utility, it does pack some amazing physics into a very small package. This includes some new forms of graphene, other two dimensional allotropes, but most notably the material's ability to retain electrons within itself. While this makes the material useful for things such as memory storage, it's ability to remain conductive at room temperature and the atmosphere has another potential application: building batteries. Researchers at the University of Texas are working on a battery material made of graphene that offers incredible capacity, according to its inventors. This might be a good time to point out that batteries are one of the greatest things that humans have managed to create. Invented around 1780, they make a tremendous impact on just about everything, from the internet to your house to your car. So, naturally, there's a lot of academic research going into finding better, longer-lasting batteries, and Texas is at the forefront of this research. "It's not just a one-and-done," says Cullen Buie, a chemical engineering professor at UT Austin. While they don't claim to have built the perfect battery, they do offer up something that is at least promising. For the initial test, the research team created graphene foam that was able to hold 30 times as much energy as commercial batteries. (The researchers note this is just the beginning of an ongoing research effort.) The first batteries ever discovered were the voltaic pile and lead acid batteries. While they both have had a massive impact on our lives, there are some pretty serious challenges with both: lead acid batteries often leak their contents and are known to corrode, and while the voltaic pile was incredibly efficient for its time, it requires a ton of zinc and copper and is, thus, not well suited for most things, particularly consumer electronics. Graphene, however, was built on the modern carbon foundation. Its great energy capacity comes from the same property that makes graphene a darling for battery research: the material's ability to retain electrons. Graphene has been hailed as a wonder material, with the potential to revolutionize things like solar cells and batteries. The University of Texas may have found a significant improvement. The reason why graphene gets so much buzz for its potential impact on battery development is due to its particular structure. Carbon atoms are arranged in a honeycomb-like structure. These hexagons are then connected to one another to form a network of hexagons. This forms the hexagonal arrangement you see above. That hexagonal shape allows electrons to arrange themselves in the honeycomb lattice structure. The electrons love this arrangement, and graphene is often referred to as a semiconductor, but one with a very interesting spin. Semiconductors generally use the hexagonal structure to act as an insulator. When they transition from a insulator to a conductor (such as the transition that makes silicon the current semiconductor of choice), they make electricity. This transformation is very slow in silicon and its other semiconducting relatives. Graphene doesn't change. Instead, electrons tend to congregate on one side of the graphene. This allows the material to absorb electricity, and if you use enough graphene, it's possible to make a very efficient battery. That's where the foam comes in. The foam is made of layers of graphene stacked on top of each other. As the material is bent, the layers shift, allowing the electrons to slide between the layers. Like any normal electric appliance, this has the added bonus of not eating up the electrons. Instead of using just one electron at a time, graphene foam can use all of them at once, allowing the material to have the sort of power that silicon can only dream of having. In short, their battery is able to absorb 30 times more electricity than current commercial offerings. It can charge faster and also store more power for short durations. It also allows for greater control over the power it produces. "Now you can determine how much energy you want to harvest," says Buie. "Your smartphone needs a small amount of power but when you plug your car into the outlet you need a larger amount." According to the research team, the foam material has a ton of potential. The team only plans on pursuing this project until they've found the kinks and made them work in practice. Their work could help usher in a new era of battery technology. "It's like a big jump in batteries," says Buie. "Just when you think we've seen everything, there is a new material that changes it all over again." No, graphene isn't the perfect battery. And like lead acid batteries, it's not always possible to improve on the technology we have now, but it's very exciting to see people like Buie and company testing the limits. Source: The University of Texas at Austin