Car batteries made from hemp: 200 times cheaper to produce than classic batteries?

From Franca Quarneti Via El Planteo

Canadian and American researchers have developed batteries from hemp that are used to power cars and tools.

As reported by Facts About CBD, the researchers built the batteries from cooked cannabis pulp and processed it into carbon nanosheets. The result: batteries “equal to or better than graphene”, the industry gold standard.

Photo by William Krause via Unsplash

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Best of all, this invention is sustainable and economical since hemp pulp is not used for the textile and construction industries and therefore usually ends up in landfills.

Hemp pulp costs between $500 and $1,000 per ton, a price much lower than graphene, which costs around $200,000 per ton. If we extrapolate, the raw material for this new energy model would be 200 to 400 times cheaper than that of a classic battery.

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The research was led by Dr. David Mitlin of Clarkson University (Potsdam, NYS) and presented during a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco.

“We’re making graphene-like materials for a thousandth the price, and we’re doing it with waste,” Mitlin said.

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Unlike conventional ones, supercapacitors (as hemp batteries are called) can quickly discharge their entire energy charge. This makes them ideal for machines that rely on bursts of energy, such as regenerative braking in electric cars.