Enhancing Energy: Coconut shells, lithium batteries and accumulators all playing a role in energy storage

摘要

Who would have ever believed that Gilligan's Island could teach us lessons in engineering? The "professor" on the 1960s sitcom seemed to use coconuts to build everything shy of a boat for his fellow castaways. Now modem engineers are using coconut shells to create ultracapacitors, which are expected to play a key role in the development of energy storage systems for hybrid vehicles. It is no garden-variety coconut shell, says Brendan Andrews of Maxwell Technologies, which makes energy storage and power delivery systems. Most of those with the required characteristics are harvested in an area close to the equator, generating activated carbon that is eventually rolled and formed into sheets.