Engineers at the University of California, San Diego have discovered a method to increase the amount of electric charge that can be stored in graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon. The research, published recently online in the journal Nano Letters, may provide a better understanding of how to improve the energy storage ability of capacitors for potential applications in cars, wind turbines, and solar power. Capacitors charge and discharge very fast, and are more useful for quick large bursts of energy, such as in camera flashes and power plants. Their ability to rapidly charge and discharge is an advantage over the long charge time of batteries. However, the problem with capacitors is that they store less energy than batteries.

How can the energy storage of a capacitor be improved? One approach by researchers in the lab of mechanical engineering professor Prabhakar Bandaru at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego was to introduce more charge into a capacitor electrode using graphene as a model material for their tests. The principle is that increased charge leads to increased capacitance, which translates to increased energy storage.