South Korean scientists have developed a new graphene supercapacitor that can store just as much energy as a lithium-ion battery. It will only take 16 seconds to charge. Imagine what this would do for electric cars?

Scientists form the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea have made the breakthrough by creating a porous form of graphene. The method is an ideal material to store braking energy, and they only used a single gram of this special graphene - which has the same amount of surface area as a basketball.

The increased surface area enables the supercapacitor to store more energy than previous versions of the material. The material doesn't use chemicals, so it has a much longer life compared to lithium ion batteries.

Still, bringing this out of the lab may not be as easy as it sounds in the lab. The scientists did say that the "supercapacitor energy storage devices… can be scaled up for manufacturing in the near future for electric vehicle applications."

Will we see this being applied in cars of the future? Perhaps. When it gets out of the lab. [MIT Tech Review]