Another "breakthrough" invention: ultra-efficient capacitor/battery hybrid

[Retroboy]

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/page1/

k. Assuming this company isn't out to lunch on its claims, here's the cool bit.
The company has developed a ceramic ultracapacitor... that can achieve an exceptionally high specific energy--that is, the amount of energy in a given unit of mass. 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.

[snip]

Pound for pound, it will also pack 10 times the punch of lead-acid batteries at half the cost and without the need for toxic materials or chemicals.

[snip]

By some estimates, it would only require $9 worth of electricity for an EESU-powered vehicle to travel 500 miles, versus $60 worth of gasoline for a combustion-engine car.Some of the things that make this appealing are its independent confirmation by a third-party research group, it exists not just in theory and is going to manufacturing by the end of this year, the stuff both retains its efficiency through more charge/drain cycles and charges up much faster than Li+ batteries, it's non-toxic (unlike lead), end-products are extremely scalable in size so they can power cars and laptops, and it's based on "real science".

Some of the detractors are that ultracapacitors have a tendency to leak their energy away so your car might discharge within a day, they don't work at very low temperatures (-20C or lower), and the powder ingredients have to be extremely pure which might be difficult in mass manufacturing.

Point of discussion: if the noted potential problems go away, could something like this accelerate our departure from the extreme reliance on gasoline for transportation, or do you expect Big Oil, corporate competition, or the huge inertia that petrochemical energy already enjoys in the world will block it?

-- Retro

[Hellraiser]

This would solve the problem of land transportation making it rely less on fossil fuels.
But you have to remember that we don't get electricity from nothing most of it comes from fossil fuel plants, how much oil do you have to burn to provide the electricity needed to recharge the car?

It's a step in the right direction but making cars alone use less oil(or no oil at all) needs to go in pair with changing the structure of electrical production. If it won't we'll just end up with electrical cars that get their electricity mostly from oil which won't end our reliance on gasoline.

[Retroboy]

True (and that goes for the distribution methods including the inefficiencies of the power grid). I wonder if there will soon be equal advances and breakthroughs in alternate power sources at the front end, and/or more efficient carrier components, of the entire process.

Consider: they're coming out with solar cells that are less expensive to manufacture and have a much higher efficiency. Fusion is slowly getting closer, and I'm a proponent of fission power generation despite historical incidents. I think we're very close to an economical turning point where alternate energy production will be at the same "pure price point" as fossil fuel energy production, without factoring in environmental and social concerns, and then things will get a lot easier.

-- Retro

[Starfisher]

EEStor claims that, using an automated production line and existing power electronics, it will initially build a 15-kilowatt-hour energy-storage system for a small electric car weighing less than 100 pounds, and with a 200-mile driving range. The vehicle, the company says, will be able to recharge in less than 10 minutes.That's very, very significant. Still longer than it takes to get gas but not by much - I would plug in for ten minutes at a recharge station over spending two pumping gas if it would save me the amount of money this thing would, easy.

The storage and manufacturing issues are the big ones, as I see it. It would be great for your car as you move around, but having to fully charge every day might wipe out the money you save over having to get gas. Manufacturing costs, difficulties and supply issues might keep this technology on the ground permanently, which would be unfortunate, because it's so damn cool.

[Aussiemoo]

It's in my nature to be optimistic about new technologies, and this one is no different. I'm sure that after rigorous testing, they will be able to refine the process down to overcome all of the projected weaknesses. I doubt this will find a use in cars, but maybe the tendency to discharge, and the capability to unleash a lot of energy at once will greatly improve the quality of tasers that we have...:D

[Black]

What this invention needs is another technological breakthrough invention that reduces the amount of energy capacitors lose. =D

Exciting, sort of.

[Ammon Ra]

That would be an ideal capacitor, which unfortunatly doesn't exist. to decrease the leakage of capacitors, you need to increase the distance between the two plates, but that lowers the energy density. Or discover a new material wich is significantly more resistive than what is currently used.

p.s. this is good news for the "invent a near future plasma/laser weapon" thread. :D

[Starfisher]

Heh, not really. If you can't keep a charge for more than a day, it's pretty bad ammo.

[Question]

Im surprised this hasnt been shut down by oil companies yet.

[Black]

I hope this doesn't turn into an "OMGOILCOMPANIEZRULETEHWORLD" conspiracy thread =\

[Ammon Ra]

it only does if people keep on mentioning it.

Fisher, i had the impression that daily excursions were the norm. Then again, i'm not very knowledgable on the subject, but that's my impression so batteries that die out after a day would make the soldiers dependant on their 'base' and when such a laser weapon is stolen, it becomes useless as the battery dies out. :)
One could also charge the capacitors to 75%, which would make them last longer than when fully charged, but that would decrease the energy density, defeating the purpose of using them in the first place.

[SquidDNA]

Yes, ammon ra, because our enemies do not have electricity!

[Starfisher]

Ammon, when you make a bullet, you make a one-time energy investment in getting it into bullet form. Then it can sit in a warehouse for years, sit on a base for months, whatever, and go directly into a soldier's weapon to be fired.

An ultracapacitor would have to be charged every time it went out. If the mission lasted longer than a day, the soldier would run out of ammunition regardless of how much he actually pulled the trigger. Believe it or not, battles can last more than a day. It's something that seems to have been forgotten thanks to Iraq, but sometimes soldiers aren't in tactically perfect positions for the entire war. And it's usually when they're cut off or out of contact that they need their stuff to work the most - not when they need it to be running down on them.

[Ammon Ra]

True.

I'm doubting the use of this ultracapacitor for daily use, as it needs to be charged daily-if charged completly. The charge drop follows an exponential decay curve, so after 24 hours, say the charge is gone. not knowing much more about the curve, if it does reach approximatly zero charge after 24 hours, then the half-life of the curve must be small. Say that the charge is 1% after 24 hours. It takes around 6-7 half lives to get to that percentage (100,50,25,12.5,6.25,3.125,1.5625,0.781].
That means the ultracapacitor looses half of its charge within the first 4 hours. after bring fully charged.
Which in turn means that if your not going to use the ultracapacitors within 4 hours after charging, you're better of using Lion batteries. All assuming that the charge decay is perfectly exponential, which it probably isn't, but taking the best possible case -straight line- you're still better off using Lion batteries if you're not going to use the ultracapacitors within 12 hours after completly charging them.

That's not really good use for your average person's gadgets and phones.

its a good advance in power density, but the lifetime isn't so good. I'm not sure they'd be that usefull for daily houshold use, but they'd definatly be usefull for business and industry.

[Handarazuur]

Fisher, why not just set it up like those kinetic watches? The capacitor thing's charged by your walking or running around, and by the end of the day it's ready to go.

[Starfisher]

Somehow I doubt your walking around could generate enough voltage to charge an ultracapacitor.

[DakkaThrakka]

I think this technology will have the biggest impact on personal & mobile computing. I don't think that the big car manufacturers will go for it until it's seen real implementation and I don't think it has huge military potential as bullet-based weapons are way ahead of any energy equivalents so far.

Not earth-shattering but encouraging.

[Deaths Abyss]

If it was used in cars and you encountered some very low temperatures, you could always use a traditional engine to warm up the car.

[Question]

Laptop batteries that last 12 hours with less than half an hour needed to recharge? Fantastic.

[Retroboy]

If the laptop battery can also be charged in 10 minutes as they say the car battery can in the linked article, well this might just accelerate the oomph factor even if it were to discharge completely in 24 hours.

Imagine taking a second battery on the plane that you had just charged up in the airport prior to boarding your flight to Tokyo.

-- Retro

[Stripe7]

Combined with a fuel cell system that gradually charges it up these would work pretty nicely for vehicles. The ultra-capacitors would be used to store the braking energy and deliver the power to accelerate the vehicle and the fuel cell system would be used to keep it charged up.

[Verrin]

But you have to remember that we don't get electricity from nothing most of it comes from fossil fuel plants, how much oil do you have to burn to provide the electricity needed to recharge the car?

Less than it takes to run the car; Energy Plants tend to be much more energy efficient with the fuels that drive our vehicles. If I remember correctly, power plants can get efficiency up to or over 40%, while the average combustion engine in vehicles usually only get about 25%. Another thing is that most of our electricity does not come from Petroleum plants, which is the prime fuel for vehicles. They only make up a small percentage of the total output. Coal, Nuclear and Natural Gas (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html) are the prime suppliers of electricity.

And it seems to me that current generation lithium ion batteries will probably out pace this development for powering specific devices like vehicles. For example Altairnano's (http://www.altairnano.com/markets_amps.html) and Toshiba's (http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_03/pr2901.htm) battery technology seem the most promising.

[Alpha_1]

I'd like to point out the writer is fail even if the technology is valid, if you can't even get the spelling of the city the 3rd party is based in correct.....

Southwest Research is based in San AntoniO not San Antonia, someone needs to spend more time researching their stories.

Sounds like a great breakthrough if it pans out, I'd pay a few $1000 more for an electric car if it only cost me $9 per 500 miles to drive, all that money saved on gas, whew.

[Black]

True Eboli, but the quote he referred to implied that oil is a major source of electricity production.

Alpha, Jesus Christ, he made a typo. Come on! I hope you were being facetious.

[Laspluviosillas]

Looks really cool, I WANT ONE! :P.

P.S :
Retro, where the hell do you find so much time to find and post all these articles spread out through the internet?


EDIT :
After Retros post below :
Cool! Thats awesome man!

[Retroboy]

Lasplus, one of my interests is knowing what's going on in the world around me, including 'latest science stuff'. There's several sites out there that I have bookmarked and regularly visit that round up this kind of stuff. It's not like I sift through random Google searches. :) And it seems to me that current generation lithium ion batteries will probably out pace this development for powering specific devices like vehicles.It wouldn't be the first time that early-momentum approaches are supplanted by more successful follow-ups, although that's usually due more to stupid marketing moves than better technology. Although the timeframe is longer, 8-tracks were completely replaced by cassettes, which have been virtually replaced by CD's now. A faster timeframe example is how Beta VCR's went to zero market share compared to VHS, but IIRC that was because Sony made a bonehead move by not sharing the standard.

Lithium ion batteries have several problems compared to this technology, even though this one has its own set of rather significant issues. Assuming the ultracapacitor approach is valid, LiO sources are heavier, they lose the ability to charge up and down completely over time, they take a long time to trickle-charge, they're less power-dense. The cost to manufacture LiO batteries is also fairly high, although with volume one would expect that to come down.

-- Retro

[Stripe7]

Hey don't forget that they also have this tendency to spontaneously ignite into a fireworks show. :D

[Thunderbolt]

i know this might sound a bit stupid but when i see ceramic i think of cracks and easily broken items.(i could be wrong posting at 2 am does that)

but that aside i cant wait to have a battery made for this old vaio i have now it sucks through battery's like a Abrams goes thru fuel.

and that car looks ok even though it might as well have geek on the side :D :D

[Ammon Ra]

it won't look like a piece of pottery, if that's what you mean. "The term (Ceramic) covers inorganic non-metallic materials whose formation is due to the action of heat".

Stripe, fuel cells arn't such a good idea either. Storing the hydrogen is inefficient as it'll boil away (10% per 24 hours? better than the capacitor though), and storing methanol in [pressurized] tanks (for the hydrogen) isn't much safer/better than 'sploding Lion batteries.

The voltage across a capacitor generally also follow an exponential decay curve, with similar time constant. That means after 4 hours the voltage across the capacitor has dropped to half, without actually using any stored power. half voltage at 12 hours is the best possible situation, and it isn't realistic. For a capacitor, though, it's extreemly impressive, and you could make the device keep its charge longer by keeping it cool.

[Verrin]

Assuming the ultracapacitor approach is valid, LiO sources are heavier, they lose the ability to charge up and down completely over time, they take a long time to trickle-charge, they're less power-dense.

Well, the latest generation have certainly improved on their major flaws (shorter charge time, improved energy capacity and longer cycle life). They may not have eliminated all the problems with Lithium Ion battery technology, but it's definitely in a direction that suggests further improvements are indeed possible. Older Lithium Ion technology current dominates the market since a lot of the newer stuff hasn't been mass-marketed yet. Hopefully we'll see it making a more significant impact in the next year or two.

[Twitch2396]

Hey don't forget that they also have this tendency to spontaneously ignite into a fireworks show. :D
Hey thats only the batteries from Sony jeez ;)

[Angelic Warrior]

Guys, did anyone notice this part of the article?

"It's really tuned to the electronics we attach to it," explains Weir. "We can go all the way down from pacemakers to locomotives and direct-energy weapons."

Anyone willing to start a new beam weapon thread? :lol:

Or are we all fed up with that? :bonk:

[The5thElephant]

I was just waiting for someone to mention that.

[Starfisher]

Actually, someone did, on the first page. And then it was pointed out that the thing discharges in a day, meaning that it's worthless as ammo.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

unless you used it as a capacitor on a tank or jeep or something.

[Starfisher]

Even then you have issues. Tanks have to get refueled often, sure, but that's just fuel. It doesn't take long to do, and you can put it on a truck to go with your tank formation. You don't have an energy grid in a war, and it's hard to put electricity on trucks to follow your energy tanks around - whatever you use to store the electricity on the truck would have to store more energy better than your ultracapacitor, and in that case, why use an ultracapacitor?

[Retroboy]

Not quite that bad a situation, 'fish. If you have a truck, you can put a generator on it and transportother initial energy sources like diesel fuel, which the generator transforms into a charge for the capacitor. It's a minor quibble, though, because it's still ineffective logistically.

The benefit of the ultracapacitor is its high energy-density makes it extremely portable and can be instantly changed into free electrical power. A generator, which is a lot heavier, can't do that.

-- Retro

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I thought we were talking about its uses for a laser or somesuch, not as an engine. The engine of the tank or jeep charges the capacitor.

[Belgarion]

OH Why not have huge solar panels (Photovoltaic?) and charge for free in the main conflict territories and use the Ray weapon that makes you think you are on fire. http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=134764
Nobody touch this Im filing a patent as we speak

[Starfisher]

I thought we were talking about its uses for a laser or somesuch, not as an engine. The engine of the tank or jeep charges the capacitor.It takes a LOT of energy to make a powerful laser or particle beam or whatever. A tank engine wouldn't be able to pull it off even if it was just idling, let alone driving. The ultracapacitor might give you the energy density needed to fire the beam, if it was big enough, but to recharge it you'd need a very powerful generator - and you'd have to recharge it every day.

It works for civilian cars because I can stop and plug it into the grid for ten minutes, and then be on my way. Discharge is a manageable problem. For particle beams, you'd need much, much more power, and in war, you don't have random access to the grid, so you have to carry your energy with you. To recharge the capacitor is probably beyond a diesel generator. Even if you could charge it off the tank's engine, I doubt you'd have any power left over to drive with. And you'd still have to fuel the tank up, meaning you'd cut deep into the effective range of a tank formation.

[Angelic Warrior]

Wait, this new type of Ultracapacitor we're talking about still loses charge as fast as a normal capacitor? I wonder then if those carbon nanotube enhanced ones I talked about a while ago lose charge as fast as well? If they do, then MIT is seriously overstating their ability to replace conventional batteries.

Somehow though, I think that the MIT ones have achieved a significantly longer charge life than normal, otherwise they wouldn't be making the claims they are.

Guys, where in the article does it talk about the charge life of these new ultracapacitors?

Edit: After reading through the article carefully, it is never explicity stated what the charge leakage is from these ultracaps. Something more exciting though, is that these ultracaps have achieved there increased performance by using a barium-titanate dielectric, what would happen if you combined that with the carbon nanotube electrodes into a single "ultra ultracapacitor"?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Well, I don't think those are insurmountable problems fisher. A tank engine might be able to at least prevent a capacitor from losing charge, and if its a specialized weapon with some unique capabilities, it might just help. Something that could burn a couple missiles launched from the general vicinity in which its pointed, or that heats up gun metal. I dont mean replacing the main gun with a laser or something.

[Retroboy]

TDS, even idling a tank consumes diesel at a pretty fast rate. A tank is designed to create really good propulsion from its diesel fuel, not electrical generation from its alternator.

Angelic, I think your hybrid wouldn't work, simply because the materials of the two products are based on completely different elemental chemistries.

-- Retro

[The5thElephant]

I just want to know when my iPod will last for a full 24 hours of playtime without losing its charge or battery capacity over time. That's all I ask.

[Angelic Warrior]

Retro, I not sure if it would work either, but I don't really know how the materials having different properties is the problem. The MIT design uses carbon nanotube electodes with a conventional (probably carbon aerogel) dielectric. EEStor's design uses ceramic electrodes with barium titanate powders as a dielectric.

Now, unless the ceramic electrodes are better than nanotube ones (something I doubt), then creating a hybrid system using both materials seems like a good idea.

[Ammon Ra]

Plug it to the mains and pay for your bills :p

Also, Why does a tank that's not actually moving have to have it's engine on? If it needs to move suddenly, you could use ultracaps to jump start a big AC engine. A bit like Hybrid technology in tanks. MAke them use less gas, more environmentally friendly :p Keep the diesel to power the tank when moving or when extra torque is needed, but charge the 'caps when braking, or with excess mechanical power, and use it to accelerate the tank from standing. Hybrid technology has proven itself in the commercial market, but applying it to military hardware isn't as easy as simply stating it. It took 20-30 years for hybrid technology to be commercialized, and possibly another 20 years before "hybrid tanks" start to apear.

The ultracaps would also be interesting for point defence lasers, minature THEL's, if you wish. Give it a decade or three.

[Belgarion]

LOL at enviromentally friendly tanks.
Just LOL

[Stripe7]

Environmentally friendly tanks tearing up the countryside and leaving depleted uranium rounds all over the place. :D

[Starfisher]

Ultracapacitors are still capacitors. They just have a very high permissivity, which means they can gather a greater charge faster. That probably translates directly into a quicker discharge leakage as well.

This is not a conceptual breakthrough - it's just a hyper-refinement of existing capacitor technology. The same pros and cons apply.