Battery Breakthru?

[Thujone]

These 'ultracaps' seem to have a bit of hype..

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/

Snippet -

"For example, the company's system claims a specific energy of about 280 watt hours per kilogram, compared with around 120 watt hours per kilogram for lithium-ion and 32 watt hours per kilogram for lead-acid gel batteries. This leads to new possibilities for electric vehicles and other applications, including for the military."

 

[65535]

Heard about these a year or 2 ago. They use nano technology to produce batteries with ultra high surface area to produce huge amounts of storage potential. Based on capacitors but have much lower self discharge than normal caps.

 

[Thujone]

Heard about these a year or 2 ago. They use nano technology to produce batteries with ultra high surface area to produce huge amounts of storage potential. Based on capacitors but have much lower self discharge than normal caps.

I remember some promising ultracap stuff a while back as well but this seems to be a fresh company, and in the end of the article they claim this press release is their first public mention of their technology.

 

[jch79]

Thanks for the link - I love reading things like this.

I want to hear from Darell about his thoughts regarding the Zenn EV cars that these will be featured in, and Silverfox on this technology! :candle:

john

 

[jashhash]

Indeed impressive if it actually works. Maybe we will finally achieve the energy density required for electric aircraft. Still I remain skeptical though, it seems like almost every day that some new company boasts an incredible breakthroughs which fade into obscure ledgends. A certian Playstation 3 comes to mind when I think about marketing hype. I recall reading about the PS3 2 years ago and how developers were claiming it's core processor; the "cell chip" was 90 times faster than the fastest intell processor. And while the PS3 is an amazing inovation, it doesn't live up to those incredulous boasts.

But anyways heres to hoping they can pull it off!

 

[mudman cj]

If you read the replies at the bottom of the page with the article, you will see that there are still many unanswered technical questions regarding the feasability of this technology. Ultimately, they have yet to produce a working prototype to show if these obstacles have been overcome. In particular, I am interested in knowing if they have been able to modify barium titanate such that its dielectric constant does not rapidly decrease with increasing electric field strength. There is nothing in the scientific literature that I am aware of regarding such a solution for barium titanate, but I suppose it could happen. Hey, at least they got funding from venture capitalists, so their story is convincing enough to draw in some serious cash. Maybe they can afford to work out the 'bugs'!

 

[liveforphysics]

Standard ultracaps definately do live up to the "hype". They have specific capacitance values 1000s of times greater than electrolytic types. They work VERY well, and they are in use in many applications.

The limitation of the standard ultracap lies in the very low voltage ratings. Storeing energy requires 2 things, capacitance and voltage. Ultracaps deliver on the capacitance side of things at increadible levels, but lack the voltage to get much energy stored, because a zillion (large quanity of capacitance) times 2volts still doesnt equal much.

These guys are claiming to be able to see voltage in the 10,000-30,000 range with ultracap capacitance. This would certianly be the first time this has ever been done, and it would certianly be able to store an increadible amount of energy.

Now, as far as flashlights go, this tech unfortunately wouldn't be helping us out any, as the DC/DC converters required to deal with 10kv would be inherently too bulky do to insulation requirements on xformer windings and HV FET switching packages being huge for those voltages.

If you used this technology at lower voltages that flashlights could easily use, you would be missing out on the whole advantage of the technology.

Now, for an application where fitting in your hand or pocket isn't a requirement, if they can really make these work, it would be a monumental improvement over our status quo energy storage methods.

 

[ken2400]

Anther thing to think about is what happens at the end-of-life of what ever we use. There are TONS of batts that just go to land fills because there is no good fast/cheap way to recycle them. What ever man kind goes with they will be produced in great amounts and will most likely need to be replaced sooner or later.