Boffins improve capacitors

BOFFINS AT North Carolina State University physicists have worked out a way to improve high-energy-density capacitors.

The new capacitors are more than seven times as effective at handling high energy than the common capacitor.

The big idea is that the higher performance capacitors would enable hybrid and electric cars with much greater acceleration.

Rockets and spacecraft could be steered more effectively and there are a large number of electrical devices which could use them. According to Science Daily, a capacitor's ability to store electricity is limited by the insulating material in between the metal surfaces, called a dielectric.

The boffins, led by Vivek Ranjan, have been playing around with a recipe of different polymers to build the dielectric. µ