And the Latest Profound Use for Hemp Has Just Been Discovered

Much can be said about the many uses of cannabis, from the
healing qualities and recreational elixir derived from it, to its reactive
properties, to the thousands of industrial uses that hemp can be utilized for;
and most recently, scientists in Canada have gone as far as to find a use for
hemp that otherwise might never have been imagined.

The scientists have discovered that simple, natural and
renewable hemp could replace a component called graphene in today’s cutting
edge supercapacitors, ushering in a new age of powerful, cost-effective tech.
Supercapacitors are found in a huge amount of rechargeable tech products which
means that hemp could one day find itself in items such as your cell phone or
even your car.

Up until now, the main component grapheme— which is a carbon
based substance— has been the main component in the supercapacitors destined to
take the place of today’s rechargeable batteries. Thus far, these new
capacitors offer the incredible ability to charge or discharge almost instantly,
but graphene is not only hard to come across, it also comes at a very high manufacturing
cost. So a team of scientists—originally from the University of Alberta now
working with a start-up Canadian company— were determined to find another
material which would rival the performance of graphene, be more readily available,
and cost less.

How the group ever decided to look in the direction of hemp was
merely part of an investigation into various bio-waste materials that were
readily available.  They figured out
exactly how to work the hemp best for this project by heating it for 24 hours
at a constant 175 Celsius, then blasting the remaining material with more
intense heat until it exfoliated into carbon nanosheets. The sheets are then stacked
to form electrodes in the same way as the original graphene material would,
then placed into an ionic liquid to finish it off.

Once made into supercapacitors, the group found that the
hemp based products not only had the ability to work in more extreme hot and
cold temperatures, but more importantly, it had more energy density than its
predecessors. Energy density is the measure of the amount of energy that a
battery can store, which up until now had been limited causing the whole
industry of supercapacitors to wane. Although they offered instant charging,
the fact that the charge didn’t last as long as regular rechargeable batteries was
quite problematic. Here is where hemp comes in to play.    

Team member Dr. Milton, had this to say about their new
development, “Our device’s electrochemical
performance is on par with or better than graphene based devices.” He also
claims that the new hemp electrodes can store up to 3 times more energy than
the previous models making them far more desirable for industry.

Confident about
the abilities of this new product Milton says, “We’re past the
proof-of-principle stage for the fully functional supercapacitor. Now we’re
gearing up for small-scale manufacturing.” This means that it won’t be long
until the hemp based technology impacts the world at large; and that one day,
in the not so distant future, we might see all of our rechargeable gadgets,
from cell phones to cordless drills to even our electric cars, fueled by the
amazing electro-conductivity of hemp.