Scientists at UC Santa Cruz and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have reported unprecedented performance results for a supercapacitor electrode. The researchers fabricated electrodes using a printable graphene aerogel to build a porous three-dimensional scaffold loaded with pseudocapacitive material. In laboratory tests, the novel electrodes achieved the highest areal capacitance (electric charge stored per unit…
3D-printed Supercapacitor Electrode Breaks Records in Lab Tests
Clean Fuel on the Horizon Thanks to New Catalyst
A nanostructured composite material developed at UC Santa Cruz has shown impressive performance as a catalyst for the electrochemical splitting of water to produce hydrogen. An efficient, low-cost catalyst is essential for realizing the promise of hydrogen as a clean, environmentally friendly fuel. Researchers led by Shaowei Chen, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC…
New Mirror-Coating Technology Will Revolutionize Telescopes
Materials scientist Nobuhiko Kobayashi wasn’t quite sure why the astronomer he met at a wine-tasting several years ago was so interested in his research, but as he learned more about telescope mirrors it began to make sense. “It turns out that improving the performance of mirrors is all about thin-film materials, and that’s what I…