We don't really have a section for Technology News, so I've used Technology Advice as the closest equivalent. I just read a fascinating article that details work on using the waste parts of the Durian fruit to make superlight aerogels which can replace carbon nanotubes and graphene in the manufacture of supercapacitors. These are used for systems which need to charge incredibly quickly like those where you need to recover energy from braking systems in cars for example, that energy can then be transferred to the conventional batteries or used immediately to help with re-acceleration. The Durian based electrode turns out to perform best in terms of rapidly charging and was capable of storing more power than a similar device based on Jackfruit, paper pulp, watermelon and sugar cane have also been used for this application but the Durian beats them all The article is behind a paywall so I can't link to it unfortunately. Could be a good new agri industry for the Phils.
Aerogels are so light you can't even feel that you have lifted one, they heat the spongy bit with steam then freeze dry them after which they are put in a furnace to turn them into porous aerogels. Aerogel was used in a couple of space missions to capture cometary debris, tiny particles, the stuff is like a ghost material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel
