By Mandy Froelich | Truth Theory
Hemp is an incredibly versatile crop. Not only can it be used for industrial purposes, clothing, food, and paper, but new research suggests hemp batteries are even more powerful than lithium and graphene.
The experiment was conducted by Robert Murray Smith and was discussed on his relatively popular YouTube channel. Smith began by observing a Volts by Amps curve of both the hemp and lithium batteries. Surprisingly, the power underneath the hemp cell was a value of 31 while that of the lithium cell had a value of just 4.
Smith doesn’t claim to have proven anything. Rather, he says the results of the experiment simply show the performance of the hemp cell is “significantly better” than the lithium cell. Watch the video below:
This discovery isn’t new. In 2014, researchers in the US found that waste fibers — “shiv” — from hemp crops can be transformed into “ultrafast” super capacitors that are “better than graphene.” For those who are unaware, graphene is a unique synthetic carbon material that is lighter than foil, as well as bulletproof. The main limit to using it is feasibility. Fortunately, hemp costs one-thousandth of the price of graphene.
“People ask me: why hemp? I say, why not?” said Dr. Mitlin. “We’re making graphene-like materials for a thousandth of the price – and we’re doing it with waste.”
The fibers were then recycled into supercapacitors, or energy storage devices which have changed the way electronics are powered. Conventional batteries store large reservoirs of energy and drip-feed. Supercapacitors, on the other hand, rapidly discharge their entire load. As a result, the latter is ideal in machines that require sharp bursts of power.
“People ask me: why hemp? I say, why not?” said Dr. Mitlin. “We’re making graphene-like materials for a thousandth of the price.”
