• zurohki@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    7 months ago

    Headline is dumb. If capacitors are better at being batteries than batteries are, they just become the next generation of batteries.

    • ji17br@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      84
      ·
      7 months ago

      But capacitors aren’t batteries. Batteries store chemical energy. Capacitors store electrical potential energy. Electronically they behave much differently.

      • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        7 months ago

        Yes they do… including not holding a charge when the differential drops too far.

        The real wins are in battery-backed capacitors. Charge the caps fast, then let them keep the batteries topped up.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          21
          ·
          7 months ago

          That’s what I do being off-grid. I have my battery bank then a series of Supercaps to essentially act as an on/off ramp//drawbridge and temper quick demands. Kinda like an inverse soft starter so this is suuuuper interesting to me.

      • WaterWaiver@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Only for certain types of capacitors. In practice they can overlap quite a bit, especially with common aluminium electrolytic capacitors (these form & dissolve complex aluminium oxide & hydroxide layers on the plates).

    • davel@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      7 months ago

      Headline is not dumb. There are reasons to make a distinction between the two, the most salient one being that capacitors are several orders of magnitude faster to charge and discharge.

    • j4k3@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      7 months ago

      Capacitors can theoretically charge MUCH faster.

      However the galvanic potential of lithium is as large as is practically possible. The galvanic potential is what really matters for a battery. Capacitors are nowhere near the joules per weight/volume.