enhancing the power of batteries?

[jerryyu]

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/batteries-nanotubes-0621.html

 

"positively charged lithium ions travel across the electrolyte to the cathode, producing an electric current"-from the article

i don't understand how that produces electric current. (someone please help me with the basic.)

 

"In the new battery electrode, carbon nanotubes — a form of pure carbon in which sheets of carbon atoms are rolled up into tiny tubes — “self-assemble” into a tightly bound structure that is porous at the nanometer scale (billionths of a meter). In addition, the carbon nanotubes have many oxygen groups on their surfaces, which can store a large number of lithium ions; this enables carbon nanotubes for the first time to serve as the positive electrode in lithium batteries, instead of just the negative electrode.

"-from the article

 

"They found that using carbon nanotubes for one of the battery’s electrodes produced a significant increase — up to tenfold — in the amount of power it could deliver from a given weight of material,"-from the article

 

my question is how does using carbon nanotubes, as a battery's electrodes, increase the amount of power it can produced?

[Mr Skeptic]

Current is a flow of charge, usually electrons. If you move the positively charged ions from one end of the battery to the other, and then neutralize them with electrons from that side, it will draw electrons away and more electrons will flow to replace them.

 

Power is energy/time. By increasing the surface area, the reaction can happen quicker and so deliver the power quicker (and drain the energy from the battery quicker).

[lemur]

Is there any way to get more storage capacity per unit weight of batteries? I have often wondered how much room for advancement there is in this area.