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Materials science

Composite for energy storage takes the heat

Nature volume 523, pages 536–537 (2015)Cite this article

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A polymer-based material has been discovered that breaks the rules — it has the right combination of properties for use in energy-storage devices called dielectric capacitors, and can function at high temperatures. See Letter p.576

Devices known as dielectric capacitors have a crucial role in applications that require short, intense power pulses or the conversion of direct current to alternating current. These applications include electronic systems for the integration of energy from renewable sources into power grids1, transport2 and military weapon systems3. They depend on electrically insulating materials known as dielectrics, which come in several types. Polymeric dielectrics offer advantages for large capacitors, but suffer from low operating temperatures (usually well below 150 °C) and low energy density (which means that devices that use polymeric dielectrics occupy large volumes). On page 576 of this issue, Li et al.4 report that a composite of a polymer and nanometre-scale sheets of boron nitride provides more than a 40% improvement in energy density compared with the best-available polymer dielectric, as well as remarkable stability at temperatures up to 300 °C across a wide range of electric-field frequencies.

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Figure 1: A high-temperature dielectric material.

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  1. Harry J. Ploehn is in the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA.,

    Harry J. Ploehn

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  1. Harry J. Ploehn
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Correspondence to Harry J. Ploehn.

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Ploehn, H. Composite for energy storage takes the heat. Nature 523, 536–537 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/523536a

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