Description: NASA requires high energy density, high voltage, high power and high efficiency capacitor that can be integrated into the system to decrease the mass and space at the system architecture level and increase the efficiency. The current state-of-the-art of the capacitor has low energy, low power density and low energy storage efficiency, making them bulky and costly for the applied system. For the NASA application, in order to maintain the energy or power system work property, onboard cooling systems has been installed, which in turn increase the mass and space. Therefore, it is important to develop improved capacitors in energy density, speed, efficiency to minimize the size and mass of future powr system. In this proposal, Powdermet proposed to develop another type advanced nanocomposite capacitor with ultra-high energy density, high voltage, high power and high energy storage efficiency. This novel capacitor will feature ultra-high energy density (>40 J/cc), high operating voltage (>kilovolt), high powder density (> MW/cc), especially high energy storage efficiency (>95%).

Benefits: This advanced nanocomposite capacitor can be widely used in advanced power electronic and energy storage devices required by NASA for aerospace exploration, such as missions using electric propulsion, robotic missions. The high energy density, high power and high efficiency energy storage capacitor can minimize the size and mass of future power system where tradition power and energy storage device cannot be applied in, making the launch more efficiency and reliability. Other NASA mission can also benefit for this advanced capacitors, for example, high power density/high efficiency power electronics and associated drivers for switching elements, NASA solar power system backups and NASA systems ion thruster propulsion power supply

The proposed advanced capacitors can directly benefit pulse power device, absorbing and delivering large amounts of energy in short periods of time. Current and future military systems will continue to rely on the high-energy density capacitor pulse power supply systems for radar, laser, rail gun, high power microwaves, high frequency power conversion and switching devices, and jamming systems, as well as for medical applications such as pacemakers and defibrillators. The high energy density capacitors also have huge potential in other areas, such as energy conversion in photovoltaics and integrated circuits, downhole power electronics in oil and gas industry, transportation applications like hybrid buses and micro-hybrids.