Portable power: batteries of the future
If you use a car, a phone or want to see more renewable energy sources in our electricity supply then listen on – this episode is for you. We need storage devices that can balance out the intermittent power produced by renewable energy sources and our demand. We have to identify viable, novel materials to make a new generation of batteries in order to get around bottlenecks in lithium supply – set to get even worse as demand for electric vehicles takes off. A whole new generation of cooling systems could speed up recharging time and prolong battery life. While paper-thin sheets of silicon with great conductive power could be a new boost to electric vehicle uptake. Explore these advances with our three guests: Juan J. Vilatela leads a research group at IMDEA Materials, in Madrid. His scientific career is focused on methods for synthesis and assembly of 1D nanomaterials into macroscopic nanotextiles for energy and structural applications. Pekka Peljo is associate professor of Materials Engineering at the University of Turku, Finland. He is interested in developing electricity storage technologies for wind and solar power. Matthieu Desbois-Renaudin, president and one of the co-founders of WATTALPS, is interested in electrification, batteries and their optimisation, including the patented cooling technology. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!YYnKjc