Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and several contributors have made a breakthrough that could have a huge impact on clean energy technology. According to Tech Xplore, the team used machine learning to identify a compound that will greatly improve the performance of film capacitors, a vital component of electrical equipment.
For the uninitiated, machine learning is a field of artificial intelligence that basically gives computers the ability to learn. It can screen massive data sets for patterns and make predictions based on its findings.
This is a big deal for a couple of reasons.
For starters, it speeds up the process of discovering new and better materials that will improve clean energy technologies. Such a discovery could have taken an incredibly long time through trial and error, the method researchers have traditionally used.
To speed things up, the team developed and trained machine learning models to sift through nearly 50,000 polymers to find one with the qualities that would best improve film capacitors. The qualities they were looking for were resistance to high temperatures and strong electric fields, high energy storage density, and the ability to synthesize easily. The models found three polymers that fit the bill.
This is also a big deal because film capacitors generally have a lower resistance to heat than ceramic capacitors. But capacitors containing the polymers found by the machine learning models outperformed those being manufactured today, and one stood out above the others. It exhibited a never-before-seen combination of heat resistance, insulating properties, energy density, and efficiency.
Now add the fact that film capacitors are relatively cheap compared to other types of capacitors.
"For cost-effective, reliable renewable energy technologies, we need better performing capacitor materials than what are available today," said Yi Liu, a scientist at Berkeley Lab who led the study. "This breakthrough screening technique will help us find these 'needle-in-a-haystack' materials."
Capacitors are used in many electronics, including electric vehicles and electric aviation. They are also crucial components in the inverters that convert solar and wind generation into usable electricity.
|
Do you think all new homes should use heat pump technology? Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. |
Definitely 💯 Improved performance could lead to the wider use of clean energy alternatives. It could convince someone who's been on the fence to switch to an EV or install solar panels on their home.
Every improvement made to clean energy tech is a step toward a world that doesn't depend on dirty energy sources that contribute to the planet's overheating and instead embraces the cleaner options available to us.
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
