Although the hydrogen fuel cell may be better suited to smaller stationary applications in place of batteries, some would argue that we might be better served in the near term by improving batteries themselves. Donald Sadoway, a researcher at MIT, believes there is much to be done in this area:
There are fads in research, and I think somewhere around the mid-'90s -- that's when laptop computers started to become commonplace -- it was then that we started to abandon battery research for fuel cells.
He goes on:
We think the next improvement will come from eliminating any liquid from the battery. We think that there are opportunities for looking at multilayer thin-film laminate with no liquid, a polymer as the electrolyte separator. You're looking at something that's similar to a potato chip bag, a polymer web coated with a different layer of chemistry. We can make that by the square mile -- it's not difficult to do. We're talking about a doubling or tripling of the capacity of today's batteries, as opposed to a 20% or 30% improvement.
If that's the case, research in this area needs to pick up. Link via FuturePundit.
