 So here the ID Tech X conference. So who are you? Hi, my name is Franco Gonzalez I'm technology analyst at ID Tech X. So what do you do? Well, I conduct research on the development of Technologies in two specific areas energy storage technologies such as super capacitors Which has been one of my main areas of research and the second one is electric vehicles These two areas are related Because well energy storage is one of the key components and enabling technologies of electric vehicles so a Supercapacitor, what is that? Supercapacitor is an energy storage device that In comparison with batteries they have a higher power density But less energy density that means that in a certain Pack of supercapacitors in the same size of a pack of a batteries You will have more power but less amount of energy. Does that mean supercapacitor could fly airplanes? well, not entirely because a Supercapacitor on its own couldn't store the required amount of energy to Maybe just a little distance, but the thing is that they could provide the initial power to start the operation of Any electric aircraft as they do in electric vehicles in which they provide the higher power from cranking the engines But it's supercapacitor is a battery, right? It's not exactly a battery because batteries work based on chemical reactions a supercapacitor works based on an electrostatic field stored in Surface areas so electrostatic fields towards surface areas, which surface where a Supercapacitor is composed you can think about the supercapacitor basically as two surface parallel Plagues of a conductor that store store an electrostatic field between them And when you have a solvent with electrolytes between those two areas You will have the formation of a double layer based on the charges are in the surface of the conducting materials surfaces and the ions that alienate themselves in The surface of those two areas these two areas are the electrodes and these electrodes are composed of Porous materials, so if you increase the porosity of those electrodes you will increase those areas at micro level and By increasing at micro level you will increase Well the amount of energy that you can store in different electrostatic fields So is there any a supercapacitor in a Tesla? well not yet, but Elon Musk said I'm quoting him that he said that if there's an exciting technology that will do a breakthrough That will be super capacitors So wouldn't it be awesome if you could charge a car in like two minutes is that possible in the future or what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be a very good Proposal and I think that fast charging technologies such as super capacitors are definitely one enable technology to do but is there any chance to do anything like that because it's a Huge amount of power you need to get through it's dangerous. No things can explode or what? Well, of course depends on Well, you need the infrastructure of course, but I think that the the thing about supercapacitors is that Because they have a so low resistance electrical resistance. They don't Heat increase their temperature and they can manage high power without heating So it's not dangerous. There's no supercapacitor stuff that explodes anywhere in the world Well, they're of course there are some materials that are used in Supercapacitors as they are in batteries solvents are organic solvents that can will evaporate and Some of them under certain conditions Can be toxic of course But That's one area that will both batteries and supercapacitors are looking to replace those Solvents for aqueous versions, which are pretty much safe. Is there like a capacitor and a supercapacitor? Yeah, what's the difference is the amount of well There's the amount of the of the energy that is stored in the device is related with this more measure called capacitance Capacitance is the charge that you can store between two Parallel areas in an electrostatic field. So capacitors are in the range of of For example micro farads Whereas supercapacitors are in the range of farads and thousands of farads So that means if you put inside a server Some capacitors in there. It's not a supercapacitor probably But the supercapacitor is only in the car or something bigger Well, they they are some supercapacitors that are meant to be used in consumer electronics Which are the smaller ones And there are others which are in the meant to be used in Electrical machine search as electric cars So they could be used inside the smartphone to keep power when you switch the battery What they actually would do in a smartphone as you know Smartphone technologies are becoming more multifunctional and that means that you use different functions that demand different power in The device so what it does is that you have a Variation of power demand in time that will drain the energy of Battery so rather than having so much spikes that the battery has to cope with them and in therefore decreasing their Capacity energy store You can shave those peaks with the coupling a supercapacitor that will take out all that High-power job from the battery allowing the battery to work with the constant energy demand That in turn will increase the lifetime of the battery. So you had a session just before a master class Yeah, and Why did it last so long time? What was going on there? Well, I think there's a lot of material and exciting developments in the area and I well I just tried to fit as much as I could so I think that the master class went pretty well because there was a lot of discussion and Well an analysis and comments from the different topics that we cover I think that's I think that's why the master class extended so long extended so long when people came out There was no more lunch No, that's not true. Okay But yeah, well there was some lunch I still managed to have some So this means differently that there will be a lot of things happening in the future with supercapacitors. Yeah, indeed. That's correct Supercapacitors well are already being deployed in electric vehicles It they will get into consumer electronics and will be able to extend the lifetime of a battery They will be able to do fast charging of a mobile phone Matter of minutes And that's something that everyone they will replace the battery Well, they will assist the battery In having a better a better performance and have a better performance in the whole Consumer device itself. So why is it something that's emerging right now? Is it something that was invented recently was long time ago and it's only now Capacitors date back from both and the same time as a lehan alessandro bolta develop the pile battery and they were some in this and Findings of recent developments of of supercapacitors in Holland at the same time. They call them the lay them jars So that's a long time ago. Yeah, but why are we talking about it right now so much the thing is that with the development of nanomaterials The technology has received more tensions because you can produce more the tail and Specific structures in Electrode materials and turn out very very useful to produce these Small porous that I mentioned that will increase the capacitance of the device. So based on the recent developments of New technology said new materials including current nanotubes graphing It has brought a lot of attention to the possibility of Supercapacitor technology. So this is nanotechnology. This is nanotechnology in action. So thanks to that Something is happening right now. Yes. All right, so we can