A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been experimenting with minuscule tubes coated with a chemical fuel that can act as a power source with 100 times more electrical power by weight than conventional batteries. It is hoped that the novel ph enomenon could lead to a raft of energy applications. As these nano scale ‘fuses’ burn, they drive an electrical current along their length at staggering speeds. Dr Strano of the Institute was reported as saying, “One property that nanotubes have is that they conduct heat very, very well along their length, up to a hundred times faster than in metals. We asked what would happen if you perform a chemical reaction near one of these, and the first thing we found is the nanotube will guide the reaction, accelerating it up to 10,000 times.”

The research team have dubbed the phenomenon ‘thermopower waves” and their nanotube bundles carry, gram for gram, up to 100 times as much energy as a standard lithium-ion battery. Such a tiny amount of energy is needed to start the reaction before it becomes self sustaining, Dr Stano says it could be initiated in a small device with the energy in the push of a finger.

Also, unlike standard batteries, the stored energy would not leak away over time and requires none of the toxic, nonrenewable metals in many batteries. As a fuel cell concept the research still has a long way to go but as Dr Stano stated, “What we’ve discovered is more than just a replacement for batteries. To our knowledge, it’s a new scientific area for research, There are many, many questions about these waves: what their limits are what the application might be.” Strano concludes that the discovery, “opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,” and according to MIT, the new development could pave the road to a totally new way of producing electricity.

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