Flexible, paper-based supercapacitor could improve performance of hybrid electric vehicles
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 14:00
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists know that using supercapacitors in conjunction with batteries could greatly increase the fuel economy of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) due to the fact that supercapacitors can recover and supply energy much more quickly than batteries. This ability, for example, allows a supercapacitor to recover all of the energy during hard braking, while a battery would allow the energy to be wasted in frictional braking due to its inability to quickly harvest energy.