【经济学人】惊！超级电容器|2016年10月1日|总第707期

考研英语时事阅读 · 公众号 · 考研 · 2016-11-15 05:22

正文

关注这里

每天进步一点点

收获成长和自信

MOUNTAINAS

翻译 | 妖精

审核 |椰子

小编 | 毛毛

Baltic exchange

波罗的海的能量交换

Manufacturing ultracapacitors

超级电容器的制造

An Estonian firm gives electricity storage more oomph

一家爱沙尼亚公司研制出了更大容量的电力储存设备

Oct 15th 2016 | From the print edition

2016年10月15日 | 摘自印刷版

ALMOST every week seems to bring reports in scientific journals of new electricity-storage devices—batteries and capacitors—being invented in laboratories around the world. The journey from bench-top to assembly line, though, is fraught with hazard and few of these ideas end up as products able to withstand the rough and tumble of industrial and consumer use. Fewer still hail from beyond the laboratories of North America, western Europe and Japan. But one which does is Skeleton Technologies’ ultracapacitor, which was developed, and is now being manufactured, in Estonia.

几乎每周科技期刊都会报道世界各地的实验室发明的新的蓄电池和电容器。然而，从实验室的实验台到工厂的生产线这一过程中充满了潜在的不确定阻碍，致使很少有新设备能够顶住消费者和工厂的混战，被投入工厂生产中。然而还是有一些新创意从北美洲、西欧和日本的实验室传出来。这其中就有一个新点子是来自Skeleton Technologies公司。此公司自主研发的超级电容器器已经在爱沙尼亚投产了。

be fraught with ：充满……的

hazard：n. 危险，冒险

ultracapacitor：n. 超电容

manufacture：vt. 制造

Unlike batteries, which store energy chemically by squirrelling it away in the materials of their electrodes, capacitors store it physically as static electricity clinging to the surfaces of their equivalents of electrodes, which are known as plates. This static can be tapped or added to more swiftly than any chemical reaction can manage, so capacitors both store and discharge electricity more rapidly than batteries do. That makes them ideal for delivering short bursts of power. But they cannot accommodate nearly as much energy as batteries, so they soon run out of vim.

与电池利用化学的方法，把它的电能储存在电极材料的方式不同，超级电容器是用物理方法，通过表面的等价电极来收集电容器上的静电，这个等价电极称作“极板”。静电比其他任何化学反应都要容易产生和更容易储存，所以无论是储存还是充电，电容器都比电池要快。所以电容器就成了提供短期供电的完美选择。不过电容器的蓄电容量没有电池大，所以其电量很容易就会耗光。

Squirrel ：vt. 贮藏

static electricity：静电

vim：n. 精力，活力

Supercapacitors, and their upscale cousins ultracapacitors, attempt to bridge this gap by increasing the surface areas of their plates, and also by adding an electrolyte of the sort found in batteries. Skeleton Technologies’ device, the company claims, does these things so well that it can deliver four times more power per kilogram than anything else on the market. Its secret is that its plates are coated with graphene, a form of carbon a single atom thick. Graphene has a surface area of more than 2,000 square metres per gram, and Skeleton’s graphene is also penetrated by pores that permit the passage of ions from the electrolyte. These are inculcated by a proprietary process, using silicon carbide and titanium carbide, and are precisely engineered to permit the ions’ passage.（读者试译）

强电容器和它的升级版超级电容器，都尝试通过扩大极板面积，并且在极板中添加电池电解质来填补这个不足。Skeleton Technologies公司声称其电容器能够储存每公斤四倍于市场上其他电容器的能量。它的秘诀是在极板上覆盖了一层石墨烯——一种单原子组成的碳平面。Skeleton Technologies公司的电容器的石墨烯表面积超过2000平方米每克。期待您的翻译，您可以将翻译留言到文章底部，第二天会有详细解析哦。

Upscale：adj. 迎合高层次消费者的；质优价高的

Electrolyte：n. 电解液，电解质

Graphene：n. 石墨烯；单层石墨

Penetrate：vi. 渗透；刺入

Pore：n. 气孔；小孔

Precisely：adv. 精确地；恰恰

Skeleton Technologies itself is the creation of Taavi Madiberk and Oliver Ahlberg, who set up their company in 2009 based on the work of a group of Estonian researchers. Initially, it produced a limited number of ultracapacitors for motor racing, where they are used in kinetic-energy recovery systems (KERS) that recycle energy which would otherwise be lost as heat during braking and turn it into electricity to assist acceleration. Another early customer was the European Space Agency. It uses ultracapacitors to handle peak-power demand in its satellites, such when they are moving the arms of their solar panels. Not only are ultracapacitors more efficient than lithium-ion batteries at harvesting energy from solar panels, they are also lighter, smaller and have a longer life—up to 1m cycles of charging and discharging, according to Mr Madiberk. A lithium-ion battery fades after about 1,000 cycles.

Skeleton Technologies公司是由Taavi Madiberk和Oliver Ahlberg于2009年，在爱沙尼亚一个研究小组的研究成果之上创立的。最初公司生产的是少量的赛车用超级电容器。这些电容器用在赛车的动能回收系统（KERS）中——这是一个能够把刹车过程中产生的热能收集起来转化成电能，用来加速的系统。这个公司的另一个早期顾客是欧洲航天局。超级电容器用来弥补卫星在能量高峰期间的能量需求。比如卫星转动其太阳能电池板时。据Madiberk所说，与锂电池相比，超级电容器不仅从太阳能板上的收集能量的效率更高，而且还更轻巧，使用寿命更长。最大能完成1百万次充放电。而锂电池在1000圈循环后就会失效。

kinetic-energy：动能

lithium-ion batterie：锂离子电池

Back on Earth, the company is now working with vehicle-makers. Adgero, a French firm, is using Skeleton’s devices to fit KERS to diesel-powered lorries. Adgero’s system, which it claims provides fuel savings of 25%, is being tested by operators including Eddie Stobart and Fraikin, two large British trucking companies. Similar arrangements would work well on trains, and also on dockside cranes, providing spurts of power when goods need to be lifted and recovering energy when they are lowered again.

说回陆地上，该公司正在与汽车制造商合作。Adgero是一家法国的公司，该公司内柴油货车上装的KERS系统就用了Skeleton的电容器。Adgero声称其系统能够较少耗油量，可以节省25%的柴油，英国最大的两家货车运输公司Eddie Stobart公司和 Fraikin公司在内的经营商对其进行了测试。相似的装置装在火车和码头起重机上也很好用。此系统即可以在起重机在托举货物时，提供足够的能量，又可以在货物从高处运往低处时，快速恢复能量。

Diesel：n.柴油

dockside crane：码头起重机

With new investment the company went into full production in April, when it opened a new factory near Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, that is capable of turning out half a million of the devices a year. Next February, if all goes well, this will be joined by a second plant near Dresden, Germany, to take the company’s combined output to 5m a year. At the moment, then, Skeleton’s ultracapacitor seems the bee’s knees. How long that will last depends on when the next big idea makes it from the lab to the world. The latest candidate is offered by Mircea Dinca and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in this week’s Nature Materials. Its plates are coated with materials called metal-organic frameworks. Whether it will ever be heard of again remains to be seen.

随着新投资的到位，新工厂在塔林（爱沙尼亚共和国首都）附近落成。新工厂一年产出量可以达到五十万个。今年4月份公司开始了全面大规模生产。到明年二月，如果一切顺利的话，公司将会在德国德累斯顿附近建第二个工厂。届时公司一年的产出量可以达到5百万个。Skeleton的超级电容器将会称为最一流的电容器。但是这个鼎盛时期能维持多久，就要看下一个重大发明何时从实验室里出来了。现在最可能的是麻省理工学院Mircea Dinca和他的同事们本周在《自然材料》杂志中提出的发明。他们的发明是在极板上覆盖一种叫做金属有机架的材料。这个发明还有没有下文，让我们拭目以待吧。

This article appeared in the Print Edition with the headline: Baltic exchange

本文印刷版的题目为：波罗的海的能量交换

注：常见的平行板电容器，其电容的定义式为（ε为极板间介质的介电常数，通常空气的介电常数最小——1，S为极板面积，d为极板间的距离）。两个极板上带相反的电荷，极板间形成电势差，就能够对外输出能量；当两个极板间电势差很小，就不能对外输出能量，如果极板中充满着电解质，那么有电的时候电解质中的正负离子有序地分开在对应的极板附近，没电的时候正负离子就随机地分布在电解质中。

下图为电容器没电和有电时的内部原理图——