(Prof. P. M. Ajayan, along with the world-renowned Japanese nanoscientist, Dr Sumio Iijima are considered as the pioneers in the field of nanotechnology. The article states the invention by Prof. Ajayan and his team of flexible batteries using nano tubes and nanotechnology. He is shown in green shirt in the photo.
Prof. Ajayan has recently joined Rice University at Houston, Texas, from his earlier job at PRI, New York.)
http://www.rice.edu/search/query.php?search=ajayan&tab=People
Article in The Hindu:
http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/19/stories/2007081955061100.htm
National
Indians, key to nanotech battery breakthrough
Anand Parthasarathy
Three departments at Rensselaer Polytechnic in the United States collaborated
Photos: Special Arrangement
Paper-thin pundits: The nanotech paper battery developed in the U.S. — and the Indians behind the breakthrough. (Top) Ajayan, Nalamasu, and Murugesan. (Bottom) Manikoth, Pushparaj, and Kumar.
Bangalore: Researchers — most of them Indians — at the oldest technological university in the United States, have announced a breakthrough that might see ultra-thin batteries, made up of cellulose, the main component of paper.
Using nanotechnology — the science of the very small — the faculty and students of three departments at the Rensselaer Polytehnic in Troy, New York State, have created a flexible device, 90 per cent of which is composed of cellulose, the same plant cells used in newsprint. They infused this material with a nanotechnology material called carbon nanotubes, which acts as the plus and minus terminals of the battery and allow the device to store electricity. It can also be used as a capacitor to store a charge.
The device can be rolled, twisted, folded, cut ... and holds out the hope that, when the process is refined, batteries can be ‘printed’ in continuous rolls just as one prints paper in a printing press.
The findings are being reported in the August 21 issue of the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” in the United States. The three department heads who joined hands on the project are Pulickel M. Ajayan, Professor of Materials Science and team leader of the carbon nanotechnology research centre at Rensselaer; Robert Linhardt, Professor of Biocatalysis and Metabolic Engineering; and Omkaram Nalamasu, Director of the Centre for Integrated Engineering.
Professor Ajayan did his B.Tech. in Metallurgy, at Banaras Hindu University in 1985, before moving to the U.S. and obtaining his Ph.D in Materials Sciences at Northwestern University.
Dr. Nalamasu, an alumnus of Osmania University, Hyderabad, and a Ph.D in Chemistry from British Columbia University, Canada, is also the Chief Technology Officer of the Nanotechnology Consortium of New Jersey State.
Others who co-authored the paper are Victor Pushparaj, Senior Research Specialist in the Materials Science Department who originally did his Ph.D at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; and three post doctoral research associates: Shaijumon Manikoth, who did his Ph.D at IIT, Madras; Ashavani Kumar who came with an M.Sc. in Chemistry from IIT, Kharagpur and a research doctorate at the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune — and Saravanababu Murugesan, who did his B.E. in Chemical Engineering from Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, and his Ph.D at Rensselaer.
Co-authors
The two non-Indian co-authors are senior research associate Lijie Ci and Nanotechnology Centre Manager Robert Vajtai.
Dr. Manikoth is quoted in the Polytechnic’s release, pointing out that the paper battery is free of any toxic chemicals, and therefore a ‘green’ device. Dr. Pushparaj suggests that it could be safely used to power devices such as cardiac pacemakers.
Team leader Professor Ajayan says: “The technology is just right for the current energy market ... looking for smaller, lighter power sources.” The team has applied for a patent and working on ways to turn the technology into a manufacturing process.
The full paper entitled “Flexible energy storage devices based on nanocomposite paper” by Dr. Pushparaj et al can be downloaded from the web page at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0706508104v1
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0706508104v1
Engineering
Flexible energy storage devices based on nanocomposite paper
( batteries | carbon nanotubes | supercapacitor )
Victor L. Pushparaj *, Manikoth M. Shaijumon *, Ashavani Kumar *, Saravanababu Murugesan , Lijie Ci *, Robert Vajtai , Robert J. Linhardt , Omkaram Nalamasu *, and Pulickel M. Ajayan *
Departments of *Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180
Communicated by Mildred S. Dresselhaus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, July 11, 2007 (received for review February 23, 2007)
There is strong recent interest in ultrathin, flexible, safe energy storage devices to meet the various design and power needs of modern gadgets. To build such fully flexible and robust electrochemical devices, multiple components with specific electrochemical and interfacial properties need to be integrated into single units. Here we show that these basic components, the electrode, separator, and electrolyte, can all be integrated into single contiguous nanocomposite units that can serve as building blocks for a variety of thin mechanically flexible energy storage devices. Nanoporous cellulose paper embedded with aligned carbon nanotube electrode and electrolyte constitutes the basic unit. The units are used to build various flexible supercapacitor, battery, hybrid, and dual-storage battery-in-supercapacitor devices. The thin freestanding nanocomposite paper devices offer complete mechanical flexibility during operation. The supercapacitors operate with electrolytes including aqueous solvents, room temperature ionic liquids, and bioelectrolytes and over record temperature ranges. These easy-to-assemble integrated nanocomposite energy-storage systems could provide unprecedented design ingenuity for a variety of devices operating over a wide range of temperature and environmental conditions.